Another massive Palestine solidarity protest was held in London on Saturday. The rally began at the headquarters of the British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC, which protesters say has failed to report accurately on the ongoing genocide being enacted by Israeli forces on the people of Gaza for the past 120 days.
The Committee to Protect Journalists and the International Federation of Journalists have counted 97 journalists killed in Israel’s war on Gaza since October 7, 2023.
As of January 29, 2024, 90 Palestinian journalists have been killed by Israeli air strikes in Gaza. Three Lebanese journalists have been killed by Israeli air strikes in South Lebanon. 4 Israeli journalists were killed in the October 7 Hamas attacks. Five Palestinian Journalists are missing, suspected to have been detained by Israeli state forces. One Israeli Journalist is missing suspected to be detained by Hamas.
Among those who spoke at the rally outside the BBC was long-time IMEMC contributor Pennie Quinton, who told how she has worked for decades alongside Palestinian journalists documenting the daily atrocities, since the beginning of the second intifada in September 2000.
Quinton noted that there are thousands of downloadable UN and Red Cross reports going back to 1967 showing increasing violence, dispossession, and seizure of land from Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.
Quinton asked, “Now where are the BBC’s broadcasts condemning the targeting of journalists killed almost daily since October 7? To kill a journalist is a war crime. Where is our professional solidarity? How do we push the media outlets we work for such as the BBC or CNN – for example to condemn the slaughter of our colleagues in the strongest possible terms?
“We see our colleagues killed day after day – dying along with their entire families in targeted air strikes. This daily carnage must be stopped. The Western Media is crucial in making this happen.
“I saw footage last week of a Gazan journalist filming a man heading South from Khan Younis to Rafah.
The man heading south asked: why are you filming? The Palestinian Journalist said: I am filming the war. The man asks ‘who sees us, who sees we are hungry, who sees we are thirsty – do the Muslims see us – does the world see our life?
“That is the question who sees and who reports – we are seeing horrific documentation of suffering in Gaza but the pressure on our decision makers from Western Media is weak. 28,000 civilians have been killed, TV stations, schools, universities Mosques and churches bombed by the Israeli state, bombs paid for by British money, and American money. Prime Minister Sunak protects ships in the Red Sea but does not protect the lives of civilians in Gaza.”
Livestream of the march in London:
Other worldwide protests have been held to call attention to the slain journalists in Gaza and the censorship of Palestinian voices on corporate media outlets in Europe and the US.
In Portland, Oregon in December, reporter Abby Martin and other local journalists organized a sit-in and vigil at the Oregonian newspaper, the largest newspaper in the region, which has failed to cover the genocide in Gaza.
Last night at @Oregonian HQ, which has failed to report on the mass assassination campaign against their fellow reporters—emblematic of US mass media pic.twitter.com/IpxV1jZUYr
— The Empire Files (@EmpireFiles) December 23, 2023
Most local newspapers and television stations in the US and Europe have diminished in size in the last two decades, and very few genuinely independent media outlets exist. Instead of reporting international news, they re-post stories from the Associated Press, which refuses to credential Palestinian journalists or station reporters in Gaza, and instead takes highly censored press releases from the Israeli military and reports them as ‘news’.
The London march on Saturday was one of numerous mass marches that have been held in the city in the past four months. According to The Guardian newspaper, the Metropolitan police had said the “scale and frequency of marches” in London was causing serious disruption to business-as-usual in the city. Deputy Assistant Police Commissioner Matt Ward, said, “We respect the right of people to protest, but other Londoners and visitors have rights as well…Getting the balance between competing rights can be difficult, but we will do it independently, impartially and always within the law.”
However, protesters say that business-as-usual should not be allowed to continue while the British government and private companies are contributing to and complicit in the genocide in Gaza. A spokesperson for the Stop the War coalition told The Guardian, “We are pleased to report that the police have yielded and agreed that our march on 3 February will finish in Whitehall, the seat of government…Those marching for justice and peace, for over three months, have had to encounter intimidation and the imposition of repressive measures, designed to suppress support for the Palestinian people’s struggle for freedom and justice. We will not allow this to stop us marching or to distract us from our central message.”
January 7th:
An Israeli strike has targeted a group of journalists killing Journalist Hamza Dahdouh, the son of Al Jazeera’s Wael Dahdouh, and journalist Mustafa Thuraya. pic.twitter.com/R7jQijJcm5
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) January 7, 2024
December 27th:
Journalist Hossam Shabat, one of the few journalists covering the Israeli occupation massacres in the north of Gaza, reveals that he received a call from the Israeli forces ordering him to delete the content he published and to stop covering news about Israeli massacres and… pic.twitter.com/4IZNUm6Dis
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) December 27, 2023
