“We have lost everything, but we have not lost our voice,” Ahmed Al-Batta, Al-Araby correspondent in Gaza, told journalists at the 7th edition of the Mérida Congress on Migration Journalism. It only took an hour of presentation and words to once again silence the Israeli genocide in Gaza.
During the presentation entitled “A year of genocide in Gaza” during the 7th edition of the Congress organized by the PorCausa Foundation, the congress account on the social network X (formerly Twitter) was blocked. Nuria Tesón, a Cairo-based journalist specializing in the Middle East, participated in the conference alongside Palestinian journalists Belal Khaled and Muath Hamed.
For now, the account remains partially blocked. Members of the Congress organization of Mérida and PorCausa declare that they cannot access the publication of tweets. For their part, the user who tries to access the profile finds a warning notice regarding “unusual activity” in said account.
Before the intervention of Nuria Tesón, Belal Khaled and Muath Hamed, Raquel Martí, executive director of the Spanish Committee of United Nations Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), spoke. During the presentation, Martí highlighted the killing of thousands of Palestinians, focusing on children and journalists. “We allowed one of the bloodiest genocides in recent history,” says Martí.
This is not the first time that social network X has silenced the genocide in Palestine. A month after the start of the war, journalist Maruja Torres denounced the blocking of her personal account. In this case, Elon Musk’s network justified that it could not share “overly graphic images and videos”.
The International Migration Journalism Congress in Mérida celebrates its VII edition on October 9 and 10, 2024. During Thursday’s session, Ignacio Esolar, director and co-founder of elDiario.esMariangela Paone, journalist in the international section of the same media and Gabriela Sánchez, coordinator and head of Desalambre, the migration and human rights section. The Congress is organized by the PorCausa Foundation with the support of the Mérida City Hall, the Badajoz Provincial Council and the organization of the European Press Prize, among others.
