Cops and Communications Ministry inspectors raided on Thursday, May 9, the Nazareth studio of Al Jazeera, in accordance with the recent far-right government decision to halt the channel’s operations in Israel. Inspectors accompanied by police confiscated equipment designed for live broadcasts last used on Wednesday, including a camera, a TVU transceiver, a tripod and an audio kit, the ministry said in its statement.
Cops and Communications Ministry inspectors raid the Al Jazeera network’s Nazareth office, May 9, 2024. (Photo: Communications Ministry)
On Sunday, the government voted unanimously to authorize far-right minister Shlomo Karhi to shut down Al Jazeera for 45 days, in accordance with a law passed by the Knesset in April allowing the temporary closure of foreign media outlets deemed to be “harming national security.” Immediately after the cabinet decision, Karhi signed four orders instructing Israel’s television and internet providers to halt access to Al Jazeera, as well as instructions to close the network’s offices in Israel and to confiscate the channel’s broadcast equipment.
On April 4, 2024, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) petitioned the High Court of Justice to cancel the temporary order allowing sanctions to be imposed on foreign broadcasting channels from Israel. The law authorizes the Minister of Communication, with the consent of the Prime Minister and the Ministerial Committee on National Security, to stop the channel’s broadcasts by Israeli content providers, restrict access to its website, shut down the channel’s transmitters in Israel, and seize devices used to provide the channel’s content, including mobile phones. The law prevents the court from overturning the decision, even if it believes it should be overturned.
ACRI argued that the law violates freedom of expression, the right to information and freedom of the press, and blocks citizens and residents from receiving a variety of information that does not fit the Israeli narrative or is not broadcast on Israeli media channels. It was also argued that the law tramples on the principles of the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary, since it includes an “override clause” that prevents the court from overturning an illegal decision. In the petition, ACRI also insisted that the real purpose of the temporary order is to label and punish foreign media due to the content of their broadcasts. It was also emphasized that throughout the Knesset debates on the temporary order it was clear that the political echelon seeks to block are those broadcasting in Arabic, which is consumed mainly by the Arab public in Israel – and its legislation tarnishes an entire population, implying that its viewing habits are liable to endanger state security.
In the petition, ACRI referred to Al-Jazeera, which the law was named after, after political officials, including the Prime Minister, declared that they would use the law against Al Jazeera itself. ACRI stressed that the conduct of the state and its institutions shows that the main reason the law has now been passed is to exert pressure on the Qatari government, which owns Al-Jazeera; moreover, for political rather than security reasons. ACRI additionally noted that during the entire six months of the war thus far, the state could have imposed sanctions on the channel under existing law, if there was indeed concern that it harmed state security, but it chose not to do so.
In addition, the Israel Communication Association, the professional organization of media and communication scholars in Israel, and the Union of Journalists in Israel described the government decision as “dangerous for the press freedom” and motivated by political rather than professional considerations. They condemn the decision “that violates the human right to access information.”
The Foreign Press Association, which represents foreign media in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, also condemned the decision to shutter the Al Jazeera news network’s operations in Israel, saying that Israel had joined “a dubious club of authoritarian governments” in banning the station. “We urge the government to reverse this harmful step and uphold its commitment to freedom of the press — including outlets whose coverage it may not like… This is a dark day for the media. This is a dark day for democracy.”
According the Reporters Without Borders freedom of press 2024 index, published today, who ranks 180 countries on the ability of journalists to report freely from the ground several major countries slipping down the ranking this year compared to 2023, including the US, Israel and Argentina. Criticizing the Israeli military’s killing of over 100 journalists in the occupied Palestinian territories, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, it said “disinformation campaigns and oppressive laws have multiplied in Israel” since the war began. Israel has seen the steepest drop of 11 places to rank 97th in the index. According Communist Israeli weekly Zo Haderech, “Far-right Israeli government open hostility to the media poses a disturbing threat to the limited right to information in the country.”
Related: https://maki.org.il/en/?p=31805
