As Israel’s genocide on Gaza continues with impunity, the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign joins the global Palestine Solidarity movement in condemning the Israel’s execution of Palestinian journalists. We call on Scottish journalists, writers and media workers of conscience to condemn the targeted killing of journalists in Gaza and Palestine (more than 100 journalists killed at the time of writing) and the systematic campaign of politically motivated censorship and misinformation aimed at the dehumanisation of Palestinians. We call on Scottish journalists, writers and media workers of conscience to be on the right side of history and join the Committee to Protect Journalists calling for an immediate ceasefire to put an end to the mass execution of Palestinian works and civilians.
To add your name to the open letter below, please complete the short form - click here.
Christmas has come and gone, it is a different year, but the Israeli campaign of terror and violence on Palestine has not stopped. Since October 7, Israeli forces have killed more than 100 journalists and media workers in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as in neighbouring Lebanon. Many of them were killed alongside family members during bomb strikes which targeted their homes.
What are UK media editors waiting for before they change the course of their coverage and join the call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza? Why are Western journalists not speaking up for our Palestinian colleagues?
The death toll is increasing rapidly, and journalists on the ground are regularly subjected to harassment, detentions and mass communications blackouts which prevent them from reporting in Palestine and surrounding territories. This constitutes a direct attack on press freedom and the right to report without fear of reprisal, which is a war crime: as journalists covering conflict must be protected under International Humanitarian Law. Article 79 of the Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions clearly states that journalists in war zones must be treated as civilians and protected as such, provided they play no part in the hostilities.
The constant attacks on media workers by the Israeli Zionist regime did not start on October 7. Such attacks are part of a system of oppression and censorship that dates back to before the Nakba - the violent displacement and dispossession of the Palestinian people by the Zionists and their allies in 1948. Over the years, it has been well-documented that Israel’s surveillance tools, technology and military tactics, set a precedent for authoritarian governments across the world. Attacks on the press impose a danger to democracy everywhere and we all must act now to stop it. The urgency of this moment cannot be underestimated and ignored, and we must challenge its course.
As Scottish journalists, writers, and media workers, we have a responsibility to address the systematic killings and targeting of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli Zionist regime.
We demand that Israel adhere to international humanitarian law and cease its genocidal campaign to displace the Palestinian people from their ancestral land. We call out the BBC and other mainstream British media for their editorial bias and complicity in ethnic cleansing and during the deadliest period for journalists covering conflict since the Committee to Protect Journalists started recording casualties in 1992. We also hold Western newsrooms accountable for the use of dehumanising rhetoric, which has only served to justify the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.
We join the Committee to Protect Journalists in the call for an immediate ceasefire to put an end to Israel’s mass killings of journalists, activists, medics, and civilians in Palestine and neighbouring territories. We also renew the call for journalists around the world to follow our code of ethics and tell the full truth about what is happening in Gaza without fear - using precise terms well-defined by international human rights organisations including “genocide”, “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing”. We condemn the manipulation of words which works to hide the clear evidence of Israel’s war crimes and the oppression of Palestinians, and call upon other journalists to recognise such actions as journalistic malpractice and an abdication of moral clarity.
