vigilant TV

Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai has ordered the closure of Islamic newspaper Sawt Al-Haqq Wal-Hurriya, on the grounds that it incites violence and supports Hamas. The closure was ordered under a 1933 British law. [ed: Jerusalem Post also has a story, but their registration process just sends me around in circles. I surrender: no more Jpost linkage until they fix the fucking thing]

Yishai argued yesterday that the Islamic Movement northern branch organ is a “loudspeaker for grave incitement against Jews, Zionism and the state of Israel,” and serves as a mouthpiece for Hamas.

Islamic Movement leader Sheikh Raed Salah held an emergency meeting last night with movement colleagues, and with the journal’s editors and correspondents, to discuss the closure order. Participants decided to attempt a moderate response, and challenge Yishai’s closure order in the courts. Last night, attorneys representing the Islamic Movement began work on a legal appeal against the journal’s closure.

[...]

The journal’s edition last Friday carried on its front page a small colored picture of Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and referred readers to a special interview. The journal “talks with Hamas’ leader on the 15th anniversary of the organization’s founding,” the front page announcement said. On page 15, Yassin reminded readers that “resistance [to Israel] has no borders. So long as there is no security in Gaza, Sheikh Yassin declared, “why should there be security in Tel Aviv and Haifa?”

[...]

The order issued by Interior Minister Eli Yishai yesterday declaring his intention of closing the Islamic Movement’s journal, Sawt Al-Haq Wal-Hurriya (The Voice of Truth and Freedom), derives authority from a 1933 law that remains effect in Israel.

Under this British Mandate-era law, the interior minister is empowered to shut down a newspaper if it “poses a danger to the public order.”

– Ha-aretz, Islamic paper’s editor slams shutdown as `war on Islam’.