PA sentences Palestinian journalist to 18 months

A Palestinian Authority court has sentenced a Palestinian journalist with the official Hamas-run television channel to 18 months in prison over affiliation to the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).

The court on Tuesday ruled that the 37-year-old reporter, Tariq Abu Zaid, who works for the official Hamas-run television network Al-Aqsa TV, must serve the term since acting Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas has forbidden Hamas and affiliated organizations from conducting any activities in the occupied West Bank.

Abu Zaid started his journalism career 13 years ago as a cartoonist and writer. He has been detained by the Israeli military a number of times.

Ever since Hamas won an outright majority in the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections, the two factions have had a bitter rivalry featuring sporadic fighting and tit-for-tat arrests. Hostility boiled over in the summer of 2007, when Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip from Fatah.

Since then, Hamas has governed the Gaza Strip, while Fatah has continued to control the West Bank from Ramallah. Further complicating the situation, Israel and Egypt — with the Palestinian Authority's blessings — have both sealed their borders with the Gaza Strip, effectively cutting off the coastal enclave from the rest of the world.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=118796§ionid=351020202.