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Israeli govt gagged media over suicide in custody of Australian secret ‘Prisoner X’

Censorship “becomes a pathetic attempt to turn back the clock to a time before WikiLeaks, Facebook and Twitter, and before bloggers who don’t give two hoots about the censor,” he said.

Published: 13 February, 2013,

Israeli media and officials are outraged over a new government censorship order preventing media from writing about a report on an Australian man who worked for Mossad, and was secretly detained for months until he committed suicide in 2010.

­The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) shed new light on the top-secret case about a man previously known only as ‘Prisoner X.’ It was reported that the man was 34-year old Australian-born Ben Zygier from Melbourne, who was recruited by Israel’s secret service Mossad.  

After ABC’s broke the news, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office summoned the Editors Committee, consisting of all of the editors and owners of major Israeli media outlets, for an emergency meeting with security officials to ask them not to report on the story – effective implementing a nationwide publishing ban.  

The ban was justified over fears that publishing further details on the case would be “very embarrassing to a certain government agency,” Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported. After the meeting, the mention of ABC’s report disappeared from all Israeli news media.

Such strict censorship is very unusual for Israel, the Reuters report explained – typically, when the media is censored for security reasons, Israeli outlets are still allowed to cite the news from foreign sources.

The details of the meeting were kept secret, prompting Israeli lawmakers to demand the release of information on it. The editors’ decision not to publish anything about ‘Prisoner X’ has led many in Israel to speak out against the media’s cooperation with the government’s ban……

More here

http://rt.com/news/israel-censorship-prisoner-x-088/?fb_action_ids=10151740311259937&fb_action_types=og.recommends&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582

February 13, 2013 - Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized