Ref: 10/2019
With the participation of 18 journalists and graduates of Media and Journalism College, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) and Community Media Center (CMC) concluded a training course in the field of human rights and international humanitarian law on Thursday, 28 February 2019.
The 15-hour course was held at CMC’s office in Gaza City from 26 to 28 February 2019, in light of PCHR’s long-term efforts to disseminate the culture of human rights among journalists and graduates of Media and Journalism College.
The training program was specifically designed for the targeted group. It focused on the introduction to human rights, the International Bill of Human Rights (the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights); the two Additional Protocols; Woman Basic Rights according to CEDAW Convention; the right to freedom of opinion, expression and peaceful assembly ; basic concepts in international humanitarian law; International Protection of journalists in armed conflicts; in addition to mechanisms of monitoring and documenting international humanitarian law violations.
A team of PCHR’s trainers supervised the training sessions. The team included: Abdul Halim Abu Samra, Director of PCHR’s Training Unit; Mohammed ‘Atallah, a trainer at PCHR; Ahlam al-Aqra’, lawyer at PCHR’s Legal Unit; Majedah Shehadah, a Researcher at PCHR’s Women’s Unit; and Mohamed Abu Hashem, a legal researcher at PCHR.
At the end of the course, PCHR organized a closing ceremony. Abdul Halim Abu Samra, Director of PCHR’s Training Unit, said that this course comes within the framework of joint cooperation programs between CMC and PCHR. He added that these programs aimed at enhancing the concept of freedom of opinion and expression and means to guarantee this right and promoting media activists’ skills, improving their technical and practical efficiency in the field of integrating human rights in their work, developing their capability in disseminating the culture of human rights through their daily work, providing them with the knowledge of mechanisms that can be followed to defend their rights in order to access to justice in case they are attacked, briefing them of PCHR’s work as part of its follow-up of the violations committed against Palestinian journalists, and issuing periodic reports that document the reality of the freedom of opinion and expression, and the violations against journalists and the mechanisms to defend their rights. Abu Samra called participants for integrating the human
rights approach in their daily media work and contributing to enhance the awareness of human rights in order to develop the society.
Director of the Community Media Center, Andaleeb Adwan, said in her concluding speech that this training course aims at supporting and developing the concepts of human rights and international humanitarian law and disseminating them among the youth generation of journalists and media activists. She added that this comes in the core interest of the CMC, appreciating PCHR for its pioneering role in disseminating and promoting the culture of human rights among all segments of society.
The participants also stressed that PCHR should continue holding similar courses in this field to outreach other categories of society due to their importance in addition to PCHR’s great experience and good reputation in the field of human rights on both local and international levels. The participants also emphasized that that the course addressed many important topics of great importance for journalists, as it provides new information that would enable them to promote their rights and shed light on violations against journalists while practicing their work.
