ISRAELI ELECTION COMMITTEE BARS LIEBERMAN FROM DISTRIBUTING CHARLIE HEBDO
Tel Aviv, 16 Rabi’ul Awwal 1436/6 February 2015 (MINA) – Israel’s Central Elections Committee (CEC) forbade Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party from distributing free copies of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, Channel 2 television reported.
Central Election Committee says Yisrael Beiteinu cannot follow through with plan to pass out copies of French satirical magazine because ‘it’s offensive to Muslims,’ Haaretz quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting, Thursday.
CEC head and Supreme Court Judge Salim Joubran issued a decree late Wednesday against the distribution, accepting a request of a list of Arab parties, who argued that the copies of the last edition, which carry a caricature of the Prophet Mohammed PBUH, are offensive to Muslims.
Arab-Israeli lawmaker Ahmed Tibi expressed satisfaction at the decision, calling it a “victory of sanity over extremism.”
Further, Israel’s election law forbids parties from distributing gifts.
Hundreds of copies of the Charlie Hebdo edition have arrived at Israel Beiteinu headquarters in recently days.
Lieberman had instructed young party activists hand them out for free, after Israel’s main bookstore chain, Steimatzki decided not to sell the edition in its shops but only online.
A special event planned at a Steimatzki store in a mall outside Tel Aviv, at which the first issue would have been sold, was canceled following protests by Arab Israelis.
Lieberman protests
Avigdor Lieberman – along with dozens of supporters of his right-wing Yisrael Beytenu party – gathered in Tel Aviv on Thursday to protest a ban on the distribution by his party of controversial French magazine Charlie Hebdo.
“I lament that we are forced to try to preserve freedom of expression in the state of Israel in this way,” Lieberman was quoted as saying during the protest by Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, according to Anadolu Agency report.
“Prohibiting us from distributing this magazine is simply surrendering to extortion and intimidation,” he added, referring to a decision by the country’s Central Election Committee to disallow the party from distributing copies of the satirical magazine.
Lieberman and around two dozen Yisrael Beytenu supporters – who had gathered on Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard – raised cartoons ridiculing Islam’s Prophet Muhammad as an act of protest against the ban.
Twelve people were killed on Jan. 7 when two masked gunmen attacked the magazine’s Paris headquarters.
Charlie Hebdo is known for printing offensive material, including derogatory cartoons of Islam’s prophet.
The suspected perpetrators – Said and Cherif Kouachi, two brothers of Algerian descent – were both killed by police two days later in a small town north of Paris.
Israel’s Central Election Committee on Wednesday issued a decree against a plan by Lieberman’s party to distribute copies of the magazine after Arab parties filed a complaint against the planned move.
Arab lawmaker Ahmad Tibi, who was among the complaint’s signatories, described the committee’s decision as a “victory.”
“It is a legal precedent and big victory for us against extremism,” Tibi Told The Anadolu Agency. (T/P001/P3)
Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)
