The Independent Commission for Human Rights - ICHR 83 and another three were still under investigation. On the other hand, the ICHR received no replies from the Military Justice Authority on the number of security personnel, who were held to account for committing abuses of the right to freedom of opinion and expression. In the Gaza Strip, the ICHR did not receive any replies from relevant criminal accountability actors on the number of security personnel, who were held accountable for committing abuses of the right to freedom of opinion and expression. Recommendations In the light of the foregoing, the ICHR submits several recommendations to protect, promote, and provide accountability for violations of the right to freedom of opinion and expression. It is worth noting that a number of these recommendation have already been made in previous ICHR reports. These are reiterated because no measures or actions have bene implemented to address or bring an end to relevant violations. • Competent authorities need to review effective legislation relating to the right to freedom of opinion and expression, including the Penal Laws and Law on Printed Materials and Publication. These will be amended in consistence with the State of Palestine’s obligations under the international conventions it has acceded to. In particular, imprisonment of journalists in connection with their professional work as journalists should be abolished and replaced by alternative penalties. • Until this body of legislation is amended, judicial bodies should not resort to an unrestricted discretion of preventive detention. This action needs to be limited to extraordinary cases, which involve imminent danger that can only be put off by preventive detention. Preventive detention should not be used as a tool for punishment. • The Council of Ministers needs to issue directives to the Police and security agencies to stop detaining or summoning citizens or journalists on grounds of exercising the right to freedom of opinion and expression on social media or practicing journalism and media activity. • President Mahmoud Abbas needs to intervene and issue directives to security agencies in the West Bank to stop detaining or summoning journalists or citizens on grounds of exercising the right to freedom of opinion and expression on social media sites or practicing journalism and media activity. • The Gaza-based MoI needs to issue directives to its respective Police and security agencies, particularly the Internal Security, to cease detaining or summoning citizens or journalists against the backdrop of exercising the right to freedom of opinion and expression on social media, talking to the media, making statements, or practicing journalism and media activity. • In both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the MoI and Ministry of Information need to intervene and remove all constraints imposed by security agencies on journalists, impeding free media activity, news coverage, broadcast, and video footage. • In the Gaza Strip, the MoI and Ministry of Information need to remove restrictions on the Palestine TV and allow crews to discharge their functions freely. • The MoI needs to establish independent fact finding commissions, bringing together representatives of human rights organisations and Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate (PJS), to investigate all cases, which involve abuses of journalists and hold perpetrators to account both in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. Twenty Seventh Annual Report 2021