Israeli Indymedia under attack

[corporatewhore]

he Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) states in a letter to the Attorney General of Israel: “The investigation against Indymedia Israel has turned into intimidation, harming Freedom of Speech on the Internet.”

Translated from Hebrew

December, 26th, 2003

Police investigators are attempting to throw responsibility on Indymedia Israel’s operators, for publications appearing in the “open publishing zone” of the website. This is done illegally and against the recommendations of a professional committee of the Israel Ministry of Justice.

The Indymedia Israel website provides a free and open stage for surfers on the Internet. Approximately three weeks ago, a surfer outside of Israel published a caricature in the open publishing zone of the website, in which the Israeli Prime Minister is portrayed passionately kissing the leader of Nazi Germany. Subsequent to this, the Attorney General of Israel ordered the opening of an investigation against the website’s administrators, for incitement and insulting a public figure.

Today, attorney Avner Pinchuk of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) sent a letter to the Israel Attorney General demanding an immediate end to the investigation. Attorney Pinchuk claims that the moment the police realized the site’s operators did not publish the publication, it was illegitimate to harass them with an investigation. Worse than this, the police investigators are attempting to ‘convince’ the site’s operators to commit themselves to continual censorship over all publications in the open publishing zone of the site. By doing this, the investigators deviate from their authority in an attempt to impose on the Israeli Internet arena, norms which are against both the law and the position of most professionals working in the field, in Israel and abroad—including a special committee of the Israel Ministry of Justice.



(snip)

Attorney Pinchuk adds that making the website operators supervise and censor all publications that are published on the open platform will bring the majority of websites to extinction. Many websites that don’t posses resources can not fulfill the demands for pre-supervision and will rather cancel the open publishing system. Other sites attempting to avoid potential indictment and interrogation will act to aggressively censor, only to assure themselves against intimidation, indictments and other charges. Therefore, analogous to what happened in other public domains, dialogue on the Internet will be reduced to a domain controlled and supervised by and for the few.


(snip)

Shamai Leibowitz, lawyer for Indymedia Israel, adds: “This is a dangerous attempt by the Israeli government, to quash Freedom of Speech and the Freedom to Disseminate Information. It uses fear and threats in order to suppress critique of the Israeli government and what is occurring in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. This police investigation reminds us, to our deep regret, of the situation in the book 1984 by George Orwell.”




Link: http://www.acri.org.il/english-acri/engine/index.asp

[Resistance]

1. Freedom of Speech

only applies to those who say the right things.

[corporatewhore]

2. In the only democracy in the middle east

no less