Palestinian Authority orders closure of several Al Jazeera digital platforms

The Attorney General’s Office demanded the Palestinian Ministry of Communication implement the court’s decision by shutting down aljazeera.net, aljazeera.net/live, aljazeera360.com and global.ajplus.net

The order asked all companies licensed for radio and satellite broadcasting to abide by the decision “under penalty of legal accountability”.

According to the document, the websites published material that “threaten national security and incite the commission of crimes”.

The latest move came after the PA closed Al Jazeera’s office in the occupied West Bank last week, temporarily suspending its work – a decision the network has denounced.

A PA ministerial committee, including the culture, interior and communications ministries justified that decision, saying the network was broadcasting “inciting material and reports that were deceiving and stirring strife” in the country.

The network criticised the decision, calling it “an attempt to dissuade the channel from covering the rapidly escalating events taking place in the occupied territory” adding that it was “in line with the [Israeli] occupation’s actions against its staff”.

The closure was also slammed by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) which called for its immediate reversal, warning that Al Jazeera’s reporting inside Gaza and the West Bank was “vital”.

According to analysts and human rights activists, such decisions by the PA are part of a broader attempt to silence criticism of its security operations in the Jenin refugee camp.

The closure of Al Jazeera’s websites and broadcast took place almost a month after the PA launched a crackdown on the Jenin Brigades – a coalition of armed groups which are affiliated with Palestinian factions such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and even Fatah, the party that controls the PA.

Since early December, the PA has besieged the Jenin camp and cut off water and electricity to most of the inhabitants in an ostensible attempt to restore “law and order” across the West Bank.

However, its indiscriminate tactics in Jenin coincide with a wider attack on free speech, activists and human rights groups told Al Jazeera.

Israel has also targeted Al Jazeera’s work in the West Bank. Last September, authorities stormed Al Jazeera’s office in Ramallah and shut it down.