Palestinian union leader: PA TV thwarts freedom of expression

Headline: "Zakarneh: "Preventing me from speaking on official TV and radio will not stop my message about unions"
"Head of the Union of Public Service Employees, Bassam Zakarneh, said that preventing him from speaking, and preventing coverage of union activities on [official PA] TV and on 'Voice of Palestine' [official PA radio] will not prevent him from carrying out his union mission and defending the rights of the oppressed public [sector] employees.
In a press release, Zakarneh said: 'The general supervisor of the PBC (Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation) prevented coverage of news related to the unions; this may be defined as suppression of freedoms and as a blow to the freedom of union activity, by a prominent leader of the PLO. This is dangerous and a contravention of the Basic Law, the Declaration of Independence, and agreements on the international and Arab level to which the [Palestinian] Liberation Organization is a signatory.'
Zakarneh added: 'The general supervisor is intimidating TV and 'Voice of Palestine' employees, especially concerning holding any kind of discourse with someone who has been blacklisted by the national leadership. He doesn't permit any interviewing of them, and many [media] employees who have transgressed these instructions have been interrogated and removed from their positions.'…
Zakarneh warned Palestinian citizens against accepting reports about the unions from Palestinian radio and TV, since these represent the views of one party [only]. Zakarneh demanded of President Abbas to intervene in order to halt the suppression of freedoms of the press, which are protected by Palestinian law."

Palestinian declaration of independence - On Nov. 15, 1988, before the Palestine National Council (PNC), the Palestinian parliament in exile in Algeria, Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Yasser Arafat declared the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. Although the borders were not specified in the declaration, it recognized the UN partition plan of 1947, which called for the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in the former British Mandate for Palestine.