Ma'an TV in Palestine glorifies arch-terrorist

4.2.2016

Question for written answer E-001075-16
to the Commission
Rule 130
Patricija Šulin (PPE) , Frédérique Ries (ALDE) , Heinz K. Becker (PPE) , Michael Theurer (ALDE) , Petras Auštrevičius (ALDE) , Tomáš Zdechovský (PPE) , Ramon Tremosa i Balcells (ALDE)

The Palestinian Ma'an News Agency, part of the Ma'an Network, has been responsible in recent years for material that glorifies terrorism and violence, as well as virulent anti-Semitic canards, including Holocaust denial and affirming the existence of the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’.

Such activities were seen to continue in the summer of 2015, when Ma'an TV broadcast a story on 22 June glorifying convicted terrorist Abdallah Barghouti. Barghouti, a bomb-maker, was sentenced to 67 life sentences, one for every civilian death he caused. In the televised interview, in a visit to the ‘home of the heroic prisoner’ Barghouti's father called his son a ‘hero’ and a ‘noble fighter’, and encouraged ‘every Palestinian of noble soul to follow in the footsteps of Abdallah’.

Yet Ma'an has received funding from the EU, enabling it to spread hatred. According to the Anna Lindh Foundation, the EU is one of Ma'an's ‘major funders’: EU financial support continued until at least 2013. Parliament's commendable resolution of 10 September 2015 nonetheless states that organisations of this kind should not receive EU support.

What is being done to fight such incitement? Do the Commission and the EEAS scrutinise other organisations funded by the EU, in order to prevent unaccountable misuse of EU funding to promote hate occurring thanks to existing indications?