A Palestinian journalist was arrested in West Bank by the Palestinian Preventative Security Service on Tuesday, according to Doha Centre for Media Freedom’s bureau in Palestine.
Journalist Walid Khalid, West Bank office director of the newspaper Felestenn, was taken from his home in the village of Skaka, Salfit. So far this year, around nine journalists have been arrested in the occupied territories of West Bank and Gaza, according to The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA).
Khalid has already spent a year in Israeli prisons this year in various sentences between May 2011 and September 2012.
Khalid has been on a hunger strike since the day he was arrested by the security service and he refuses to talk or even take his medicines, according to his wife. The reason for his arrest is yet to be confirmed.
His wife explained that Khalid is determined to continue with his hunger strike until he is released. The journalist has not been allowed to see his family since his arrest and no one is aware if he has access to a lawyer.
MADA has condemned the arrest of Khalid and calls for his immediate release. In a press release published on their website, they state: “Journalists' rights and media freedom should not be abused as part of the on-going internal division between Fateh and Hamas.”
Khalid, who is also an author, has already spent 15 years in prison in Israel, the majority of which was spent in sollitary confinement, on unknown charges.
Source: DCMF
