Tuesday April 3, 2012

I've Been Thinking:

The Palestinian Authority arrested a woman today and is charging her with insulting President Mahmoud Abbas.

She did not say a word and not a word was put in print.

Ismat Abdul Khaleq is a lecturer at a university in the West Bank. On her Facebook page she posted that Abbas was a traitor and she demanded that he resign.

Ismat Abdul Khaleq is being charged for sedition in cyberspace. Prosecutors said that this goes beyond the pale and that Palestinians may not insult Abbas in any media.

This is not the first Palestinian crackdown on freedom of expression and writing on air and on line. A journalist named Yossef Al Shayeb was arrested for insulting members of the Abbas government. Two other journalists were arrested, interrogated and recently released.

One was interrogated about a Facebook entry while the second was interrogated about a story he was prepping and researching.

Do not be misled. The liberal Palestinian Authority is not what is appears to be.

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