Shireen Abu Akleh, a longtime TV correspondent for Al Jazeera Arabic, was killed on Wednesday after being shot in the head while covering the Israeli army’s raids in the city of Jenin in the northern occupied West Bank.

Shatha Hanaysha, another Palestinian journalist who was with Abu Akleh when she was murdered, asserted the incident was a “deliberate attempt” by Israeli forces to kill the journalists.

Of course this is not the first time that the Zionist forces have shown their true nature to the media but this time they have no excuse but trying to silence anyone who wanted to reveal their nature to the world.

Some 230 international rights organizations and networks strongly condemned the killing of veteran Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank, calling for the regime in Tel Aviv to be held accountable for the brutal crime.

The Palestinian Ma’an news agency said the 229 signatories affirmed in a statement that the Israeli occupation forces’ targeting of the Palestinian journalist was a “deliberate and premeditated act and a full-fledged assassination operation.”

But so far, Reporters Without Borders has been silent regarding this murder by the Israeli forces and now its independence has been questioned because of this passive attitude.

Reporters Without Borders is an international non-profit and non-governmental organization with the stated aim of safeguarding the right to freedom of information. It describes its advocacy as founded on the belief that everyone requires access to the news and information, in line with Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that recognizes the right to receive and share information regardless of frontiers, along with other international rights charters.

But it seems someone should awaken this organization to react to this brutal savagery of the Zionists against one of the prominent Palestinian journalists. We have once and again seen that this organization takes stand against suppressing media and journalist in the countries but it seems they just take stand whenever they want and against some certain countries like Russia, China or any other country that this organization is at odd with them.

This murder once again revealed the true nature of Israeli regime and showed the world it should not pity this criminal regime in case its forces are attacked. Some Western countries have tried to condemn this murder but they have not shown any courage to directly point their fingers at Israel as the main culprit. Of course it is not strange because everybody knows it well that Israel is supported by the big powers especially by the West and due to this support and sometimes shedding crocodile tears, the killer regime continues bloodshed. Normalization of ties has emboldened the Zionists to continue their atrocities under indirect support of those Arab governments.

The secretary-general of the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah has strongly condemned the brutal murder of veteran Palestinian journalist Abu Akleh by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, saying those who seek normalization of ties with the occupying regime should be ashamed of this heinous crime.

If the international bodies and nations once and for all take a tough stand against the Israeli regime, it will be unable to continue such merciless acts against the innocent and committed people or else this story will be repeated every day and one can witness killing of people in Palestine and the Occupied Lands.

Reporters Without Borders and other international journalist bodies need to prove their real independence by condemning the Israeli regime and they should also join martyr Abu Akleh in revealing the real nature of this fake and killer regime.

By the way, Muslim state governments should be united in taking a firm stand against the Zionist regime’s brutality to show their real consolidation to the Palestinians and now it is the right time for the world to take a tough stand against Israel because this regime shows no pity to anyone because the nature of this regime relies on blood sucking and occupation.

As the Islamic Republic of Iran has repeatedly reiterated, a united Muslim world can bring the Zionist regime down and as long as rift is seen in Muslim world, this fake regime will callously continue their crimes but as we believe, tyranny does not last and it will be eradicated in its due time.

Now journalism in the world should show their responsibility in exposing Zionists’ crimes because today Abu Akleh has been murdered and any time in the future the Zionist may kill more journalists to silence them and any passiveness by the journalist in exposing the Zionists will be a treason to this profession which is aimed at flow of truth and correct information as well as exposing criminals..

The post Zionists Silencing True Journalism appeared first on Iran News Daily.

Mohammad Khodadi made the remarks in reaction to a recent speech by Maas at German parliament (Bundestag), in which he had listed “repressive measures taken against journalists in Russia, Venezuela, Iran, Turkey and China” as “the serious consequences of the COVID-19 outbreak for human rights”.

In a similar instance of releasing erroneous, baseless and exaggerated information, Reporters Without Borders, also known by its French acronym RSF, published in April its annual ranking of countries based on the strength of their press freedoms last week, highlighting several countries – including Iran (ranked 173rd) and China (ranked 177th) – as states whose governments “censored their major coronavirus outbreaks extensively”.

RSF also failed to present the criteria for its ranking of the countries.

“My question is on what basis German officials are raising such an issue,” Khodadi added.

He said the German government’s source of information is disordered, adding either they had received erroneous information or failed to have any just seeking to adopt a stance without a source, which is wrong.

Khodadi also said he expected the German Embassy in Iran to, at least, provide Maas with real information and documentation.

The post German FM must prove Iran treating journalists appeared first on Iran News Daily.

The “historically low” number of journalists mostly were killed covering conflicts in Yemen, Syria, and Afghanistan, during 2019 the Paris-based watchdog said, which warned that “journalism remains a dangerous profession”.

Some 80 journalists a year have lost their lives on average over the last two decades, said the organization, which is known by its French initials RSF.

But its head Christophe Deloire warned that the number of journalists murdered in countries supposedly at peace was still alarmingly high, with 10 dying in Mexico alone.

“Latin America, with a total of 14 reporters killed across the continent, has become as deadly as the Middle East,” he added, AFP reported.

While he said that the fall in the number of fatalities in conflict zones was something to celebrate, “more and more journalists are being assassinated for their work in democratic countries, which is a real challenge to democracy.”

While fewer journalists are dying, more are ending up behind bars, according to RSF.

A total of 389 were locked up in 2019, up 12 percent on last year.

Nearly half were imprisoned in three countries — China, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, which was blamed for the gruesome murder of columnist Jamal Khashoggi at its embassy in Istanbul last year.

“China, which has intensified its repression of the (mostly Muslim) Uyghur minority, alone holds a third of the journalists locked up in the world,” RSF said.

Meanwhile, 57 journalists are being held hostage across the globe, mostly in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Ukraine.

“There has been no notable freeing of hostages this year despite major developments in Syria,” the RSF said, which has led it to fear for the worst for many of those abducted.

The post Journalists Killed in 2019 Reaches 49 appeared first on Iran News Daily.