Small Step Toward Freedom
COURT ORDERS STATE PROSECUTOR TO DISCLOSE DECISIONS ON FEEEDOM OF SPEECH AND INFORMATION CASES Israeljustice.com www.israeljustice.com/news2.asp?key=107 Date added: 2/21/2008JERUSALEM -- An Israeli court has instructed the state prosecutor's office
to disclose decisions on issuing indictments in cases of freedom of speech
and freedom of information in the trial of a Jewish critic of Israel's
withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank in August 2005."This is a precedent from two points of view," defense attorney Yitzhak
Bam said. "The attorney general is ordered to disclose all the decisions
related to offenses regarding freedom of expression and free speech
offenses. All the decisions regarding freedom of information offenses must
also be disclosed."Jerusalem District Court Judge Musia Arad ordered the state prosecutor's
office to disclose all 1,260 decisions in cases regarding freedom of speech
and freedom of information from the year 2000 to the present day. The
majority of the decisions on whether to issue indictments or not in these
cases were made by Attorney General Menachem Mazuz and Deputy State
prosecutor for Special Affairs Shai Nitzan.Arad gave the prosecutor's office 90 days to produce the material and
also ordered the state prosecutor's office to pay the court costs of 7,500
Israeli shekels [$2,075] to the appellant, Elitzur Segal.Rabbi Elitzur Segal was indicted in 2005 for insulting the Israeli
military's chief rabbi, Brig. Gen. Yisrael Weiss. In an article on a website
in 2004, Segal accused Weiss, who served as military chief rabbi during
Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, of tolerating the violation of Jewish law in
the military. Segal said that Weiss facilitated the violation of the Sabbath
as well as against killing and eating non-kosher food in the army. Segal
also wrote that Weiss did not stop male and female soldiers from sleeping in
the same tent during operations.Weiss never pressed charges against Segal. Instead, a police unit that
monitors dissident Internet sites gathered evidence against Segal after a
complaint was submitted in 2005 by parliamentarian Eitan Cabel, a Labor
Party member of the Knesset Constitution and Law Committee. Mazuz ordered an
investigation of Segal's article, and evidence was collected by the police's
computer crimes unit, established to monitor anti-withdrawal websites. Segal
was charged with insulting a civil servant, punishable by six months in
prison. The law, introduced by the British Mandate before the founding of
the Jewish state, has been used against opponents of the government's
withdrawal policy."The right of Segal to study the information takes on another dimension
when the state itself holds the information regarding all the decisions that
are requested and it is the state that has indicted the appellant," Arad
said on Feb. 12. "It is also the state that argues that the appellant must
have enough evidence [to prove selective prosecution] and this can't be done
by referring to just a few decisions."
This is a small step toward freedom in Israel.
It always seems odd to me that the only people in Israel that are prosecuted for speaking against the government are those that speak out against the policies of capitulation to our enemies .
Why is the left not investigated, for wanting to create a terrorist state on our land or for their anti Torah agendas?
When will Israel become a Jewish state rather than a state where Jews happen to live?
