Israel boycott laws attack on freedom of expression

By Amnesty International

A law adopted by the isrælske the Knesset (Parliament) makes it a punishable offence to call for a boycott against the State of Israel or its West Bank settlements Gets a chilling methods effect on freedom of speech in Israel, said Amnesty International today.

Controversial law, passed Monday evening, makes it a civil offence to require an economic, cultural and academic boycott of persons or institutions in Israel or the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT) for political reasons. Anyone making such calls could be faced with a lawsuit and other financial penalties.

Sponsors of the Bill, originally proposed in July 2010, Knesset member and coalition Chairman since Elkin, has made it clear that one of the main objectives of the legislation is to punish them by using the boycott call to campaign against Isræls illegal settlements in the OPT or highlight the ongoing violations of Palestinian rights caused by the settlements.

"Despite proponents claim the contrary, this law is a blatant attempt to stifle peaceful dissent and campaign by attacking the right to freedom of expression, as all Governments must maintain," said Philip Luther, Amnesty International's Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

"The broad definition of boycott could apply to anyone seeking to use this non-violent means of disagreement to criticise any single person or institution involved in human rights violations or violations of international law in Israel or the occupied Palestinian territories."

Promoted and supported by the Government, the law was Netanyanhu adopted by 47 votes to 36, although the top legal advisors of the Knesset and Isræls the Attorney General said it was "borderline illegal". More isrælske human rights NGOs have indicated that they plan to challenge the law in the Isræls High Court of Justice.

Parties filing lawsuits would not have to prove that a call to boycott has resulted in actual damages, which the courts can order persons or organisations are calling for a boycott to pay compensation regardless of the damage caused.

The law also allows the minister of finance to revoke tax-exempt status for NGOs are calling for a boycott, which threatens funding on as many isrælske human rights NGOs chairs. Enterprises or organisations participating in a boycott could also be disqualified from applying for public contracts.

This is only one of many laws recently adopted or are considered by the Knesset, which has been criticized by isrælske human rights NGOs for restriction of freedom of expression, in isrælske civil society organizations or the Palestinian citizens and their political representatives ' rights.

Isræls policy of establishing settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, violating the Fourth Geneva Convention and is considered a war crime, according to the Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Amnesty International has repeatedly urged the isrælske authorities to terminate the settlement construction as a first step towards fully remove illegal isrælske settlements from the occupied Palestinian territories.

Amnesty International has taken no position on the boycott throughout the world, but fear that this law will lead to violations of the right to freedom of expression of those who call for the boycott.

(Amnesty International UK. Press Release; 12 July 2011.)

 

Freedom Road

By John Simpson
BBC World Affairs Editor

There is nothing quite as exciting as the revolution. People of all types, and Sweeps the categories and makes them more men, more resourceful than studies, their normal selves, arjen.

All of a sudden be head long years after they are ready to give their lives to freedom-or at least you can instant print film, the upstairs window to the street Shooting.

Revolution, a few days at least, allows people to be what they ideally wants to be.

Bahrain, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, in their different ways, all taken in the sense of liberation noted this uplifting.

"Welcome, welcome!" cried is central to the coastal regions of the roadblock on the road in Libya the revolutionary military, the other day my team and I drove toward the front line.

He pressed the water and the fruit and bread for us. All of the revolution at the beginning of the suppliers are always treated in the days of the uprising of friends. Is not necessarily true, and perhaps it never is.

But this Government loyalists See as part of the international press is generally harmful to the process that has brought trouble to greet you, the revolutionaries about sabbatical.

When you share all the dangers and privations, and they love you for it. And, of course, the side of the story are shown for the first time.

To reveal the truth

41 years, Colonel al-Gaddafi has completed his Unconventional, sometimes cruel Government experiment.

Presumably it all has been done, and the people. And these people suddenly can tell the world that the corrupt and the press openly hated clique actually performs the liberation of the old system is itself.

Sometimes this information, what they really think is enough in itself energy imports the ancient system.

In Eastern Europe in 1989 revolutions occurred, mainly because the people rose up and confronted the fiction Bullshit, that State was to run them, and them.

So a large part of the foreign press to call on all of the revolution.

In the Middle East, which could easily switch suppliers-in Bahrain, Egypt, Tunisia and Libya-the four countries as a result of a sudden have specifically, if there has been a major convulsions.

Special press visas from Egypt or Tunisia, Bahrain is not needed. And Libya, Egypt, in the East of the neighbouring States, which is part of the first Colonel al-Gaddafi was returned by the rule, so it was easy to fly to Cairo on the edge of the drive, and open arms to revolutionaries with a positive, Libya which were in existence in the control.

In countries where the comings and goings of the international press is heavily controlled in places such as Algeria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, and so on – it is much more difficult to show the outside world, what happens.

Insanely revolutionaries cannot retrieve the external data behaves like draught is the open fire and will import the all the accounts of the White House and Downing Street, and at United Nations Headquarters.

The revolutionary process

It was Edmund Burke back to the first modern revolution-one in France-which was that the area of freedom, equality and veljeys would disappear quickly from a very early days and terrible excesses-of executions, torture, repression of leading.

Šaahi fled to Iran still objections after months in 1979

It is, what happened in Libya in 1969, Colonel al-Gaddafi since the coup d ' état took place, only the journalists could not get there.

It also happened in Iran 10 years later, when the Shah was overthrown, but was easy to go there.

Press attention in the West and play the part of it should block the combination bringing him.

All about myself, and reported only a few days in London, near my house, elderly refugees from Iran began shouting me on the street: "now you can see what you started the revolution has made the entire world."

The country is more vulnerable to pressure the leaders of the West are more likely to step down after the revolution.

If the President Hosni Mubarak had not been American ally, he still have the impressive Palace, Heliopolis now.

Colonel al-Gaddafi has so far failed to break because he is too way out, too, for the friendless internationally anyone can stop her, his own people bombard the tanks and the air force.

So West care of human life and the free press is a major obstacle to the extreme, less is not so good for dictators, and the really nasty ones in order to overcome the obstacles.

It is one of the muse.

My team and me, we are taking a few days from a revolution and we have come here in Cairo.

We have had a change of clothes for the shower or the day, and we fired at any time, and the 3D maze to safety as we remember.

Turns against them, who, all of the basic similarity.

To report this one in Libya or Egypt, within the previous month, makes you part of a process which moves to the right storming back in the Bastille.

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