The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) was founded in 1972 as a non-political and independent body, with the goal of protecting human and civil rights in Israel and in the territories under Israeli control. The founders of ACRI rooted their vision in the principles and rights articulated in the Declaration of Independence, and in the United Nation’s Universal Declaration on Human Rights, which was drafted under the influence of the horrors seen during the Second World War. Today, ACRI is Israel’s largest and leading human rights organization, and the only body to address the full range of human rights: from the right to liberty through freedom of information; from the right to education through freedom of expression. ACRI works to protect the right of diverse individuals and sectors of society including men and women, religious and secular, Jews and Arabs, those on the political right and left, new immigrants and veteran citizens, the unemployed, and foreign workers.

Indymedia Israel has been about for a long time, and it appears like many people are fond of taking shots at it. Well they would wouldn't they?

You can take a look back at a case of "inciting hatred of Sharon" which led to police woes in 2002:
 http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-barcelona-tech/2002-April/001345.html

So this year it's a graphic.
Not a photograph of blood and gore,
not a fact which was mistaken and presented as truth,
not a few lines of ascerbic prose,
no it was a graphic. One I think personally to have been in bad taste, but then I think Sharon to be in bad taste as well. I can not incite anyone to hate him, just please make him stop and make the others stop as well. I'm very simple and so are most of us.

But stopping Sharon is as difficult as stopping an indymedia collective.

Shalom = Saleem.
Happy new Year Israel IMC!

*************C/P of the letter**********************


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.

Electronic billboards, like that of Indymedia Israel, are very common on
the Internet and are used by many individuals and communities wishing to
exchange information and opinions freely. As opposed to the global
process of concentration of the media and debate in the hands of a few,
the public platform of the Internet provides a unique ground for free,
democratic dialogue. Indeed, in the open publishing zone, some offensive
expressions might appear, such as slander or abuse of privacy. However,
the general opinion of judges and legislators from all over the world
holds that, in almost all cases, responsibility should not be laid upon
the providers of Internet services-website operators that allow an open
publishing zone for the entire surfing public. This is also the opinion
of a special committee of the Israeli Ministry of Justice, which
presently discusses this issue.

Now however, when legislators and judges around the world deny that
website operators have civil responsibility for ''guest'' publications,
and at the very moment that the Ministry of Justice committee discusses
the design of legal arrangements that will explicitly anchor these
conceptions in law, the police investigation team makes up its own
norms, claiming criminal responsibility, and even worse, hurrying to
impose them in practice using an harassing and bullying investigation
against the website operators, demanding behavior according to a 'legal
policy' that they made-up.

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.

Fear of abuse on the internet, says Attorney Pinchuk, must not bring
about the destruction of the platform itself. We can assume that the
invention of the airplane assisted criminals occasionally to escape, but
the solution to this problem lies in the field of extradition law and
international agreements, not in the destruction of airplanes or placing
responsibility on pilots or stewardesses.

Therefore, Attorney Pinchuk requests a permanent end to the
investigation and a cessation of harassment against the website
operators for publications published by others on the open platform on
the website.


-------
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.''

 http://israel.indymedia.org




ACRI:
 http://www.directory.forum-alternatives.org/fr/node/view/347
This story:
 http://indymedia.org.il/#acri_eng