The Palestinian Authority arrested five journalists on Tuesday evening and charged them with leaking sensitive information to enemies.

According to Shireen al-Khatib, an associate at the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedom, the detained journalists include Tariq Abu Zayd and Ahmad Halaika of Hamas-run al-Aqsa television, The Jerusalem Post reported. The three others were identified as Qutaiba Kasem, who writes for the privately-owned news website Asdaa Press, as well as Mamdouh Hamamreh of the pro-Hamas television station al-Quds and Amer Abu Arafa of the Shihab news agency.

The PA’s record on human rights and freedom of expression has been criticized by international observers. In August, Human Rights Watch condemned the treatment of journalists by both Hamas and the PA, stating that their tactics led to a “chilling effect” on freedom of expression in the Palestinian territories. “Both Palestinian governments, operating independently, have apparently arrived at similar methods of harassment, intimidation and physical abuse of anyone who dares criticize them,” said Sari Bashi, HRW’s Israel/Palestine director.

A survey released by the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms in 2014 found that “80% of Palestinian journalists in the West Bank and Gaza practice self-censorship of their writing.” A poll published that same year by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that 70 percent of Palestinians did not feel that they could criticize the PA.

Suppression of free press is another manifestation of the increasingly authoritarian rule of PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

Grant Rumley, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, warned that if the West fails to challenge Abbas’ ever-growing corruption and autocratic rule, it “could have a devastating effect on the long-term prospects for a viable Palestinian state.”

[Photo: AP Archive / YouTube ]