A targeted Israeli attack killed six journalists in Gaza on Sunday. These crimes have rekindled the mobilisation of journalists’ unions in Europe. On the call of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), journalists’ organisations in 23 countries have sent a letter to their governments asking them to take concrete measures to stop the massacre. Demonstrations are planned in Sweden, on Thursday, and Belgium, at the end of August. The EFJ is calling on its affiliates to take action wherever they can.
As reported by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), on 10 August, Israeli forces killed five Al Jazeera staff including journalist Anas al-Sharif, correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh, camera operators Ibrahim Zaher and Moamen Aliwa, and driver Mohammed Noufal in a targeted attack on a tent housing journalists located outside Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. On 11 August, a freelance photojournalist Mohammed Al-Khaldi succumbed to his wounds, sustained in the airstrike that targeted the Al Jazeera crew.
In response to these murders, a number of journalists’ unions have just announced actions:
- the Swedish union SJF is organising a demonstration in the centre of Stockholm on Thursday 14 August at 12.30pm, with a simple message: “Stop killing our colleagues”;
- the Belgian association AJP and other organisations, including the EFJ and SDJ-RTBF, are preparing a rally in Brussels during the last week of August, at which the names of the 181 Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza will be read out.
On Monday evening, EFJ General Secretary Ricardo Gutiérrez appeared live on Al-Jazeera to express the solidarity of journalists in Europe. “I was pleased to see that one of Al Jazeera’s surviving correspondents in Gaza was aware of the expressions of solidarity from colleagues in Europe, as well as the growing public sympathy for the martyred people of Gaza. I explained once again that the culpable inaction of European governments and the European Commission should not be confused with the position of European citizens, who are now in the vast majority calling for sanctions against Israel and strongly denouncing the war crimes and crimes against humanity under way in Gaza and the West Bank”.
“Today, in Europe, added Gutiérrez, no one doubts the genocidal intentions of the Israeli government, or its strategy of media blackout, preventing the international press from documenting the ongoing genocide, and massacring Gazan journalists. Sunday’s assassination is part of this global strategy of censorship. The perpetrators of the genocide are doing everything they can to erase the traces of their crimes. Putting an end to journalists, who are inconvenient witnesses to these crimes, is the stage prior to the massacres that are about to take place”.
“The States that continue to support Israel must now place tough sanctions against its government in order to end the killings, the atrocities and the mass starvation,” said today UN experts Irene Khan and Francesca Albanese.
Following the call of the EFJ, which sent a similar letter to the European Commission, journalists’ organisations sent letters to the governments of 23 European countries, asking them to take urgent concrete action to end the forced starvation in Gaza, to protect Gazan journalists and to allow the international press access to Gaza to document ongoing war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Here is the list of solidarity actions undertaken by EFJ affiliates:
- Albania: Letër e hapur drejtuar kryeministrit Edi Rama dhe Presidentit Bajram Begaj
- Belgium: Gaza : Vous pouvez agir and AGJPB letter to the Belgian government
- Bosnia & Herzegovina: BHJA letter to the government: Gladovanje kao oružje, šutnja kao saučesništvo
- Bulgaria: AEJ-Bulgaria letter to the Bulgarian MFAand UBJ letter to the Bulgarian government
- Croatia: Starvation as a weapon, silence as complicity – Solidarni s kolegama i civilima u gazi, trazimo da vlada podrzi suspenziju sporazuma izmedu eu-a i izraela
- Denmark: DJ opfordrer regeringen til at lægge pres på Israel for at beskytte civile og pressefolk
- Finland: Journalistiliitto: Nälkä tappaa tiedonvälityksen Gazassa
- France: Gaza: courrier CFDT-Journalistes à l’Élysée et au Quai d’Orsay et APPEL à l’action
- Greece: PFJU letter signed by Greek journalists’ unions sent to the Greek Prime Minister and other government officials
- Italy: Ordine dei Giornalisti Fundraising campaignand Gaza, lettera aperta al governo italiano: «Rimanere in silenzio è una vergogna». Iniziativa di Ifj, Efj e Fnsi
- Iceland: Blaðamannafélag Íslands letter to the Prime minister and the Foreign minister
- Kosovo: AGK – Ja i shkruan leter te hapur presidentes osmani dhe kryeministrit ne detyre kurti per situaten ne Gaza
- Malta: Open letter addressed to Prime minister Robert Abela and Foreign Affairs minister Ian Borg
- Montenegro: SMCG: Vlada da jasno definiše stav o ratnim zločinima u Gazi
- The Netherlands: NVJ letter to the Dutch minister of Foreign Affairs, Caspar Veldkamp
- North Macedonia: SSNM se solidarizira so civilite i novinarite i mediumskite rabotnici vo Gaza
- Norway: NJ sends letter about Gaza to Støre and Barth Eide
- Serbia: SINOS: Zaustaviti zločine protiv čovečnosti u Gazi, NUNS and GS KUM “Nezavisnost” open letter, UNS open letter to the Serbian government
- Slovenia: Stradanje kot orožje, neukrepanje kot sokrivda
- Spain: UGT letter: La inanición como arma, el silencio como complicidad
- Sweden: Letter to the Prime Minister about Gaza
- Turkey: DİSK Basın-İş open letter to the governmentand TGS letter to President Erdoğan “Gazze, silah olarak kullanılan açlık ve Avrupa Komisyonu’nun sessizliği”
- Ukraine: NSJU zaklykaye ukrayinskyj uryad pryyednatysya do kampaniyi na zahyst prav zhurnalistiv u gazi
The EFJ calls on its 75 affiliates in Europe to follow the example of our Swedish and Belgian colleagues by organising solidarity actions to continue to put pressure on European governments. The EFJ also calls on all journalists to show their solidarity by making a donation to the IFJ Safety Fund (mention ‘For Gaza’).
Source: EFJ
