Group calls on A-G to prosecute 'flytilla' activists

A civil rights group called on Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein on Thursday to prosecute pro-Palestinian activists who come to Israel as part of the mass “fly-in” or “flytilla” event scheduled for Sunday.

In their letter to Weinstein, the Israel Law Center (Shurat Hadin) said those “flytilla” activists who come to Israel would be acting in violation of Israeli law, including the Penal Code, the Police Ordinance and Emergency Regulations.

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“It is in the public’s interests to deter participants in the upcoming ‘flytilla’ from taking part in future ‘flytillas’,” the Law Center told the attorney-general.

The Law Center said that it believed a public announcement by the attorney-general that he intended to prosecute all ‘flytilla’ activists (subject to exceptions based on discretion) may cause at least some activists to reconsider participating in similar actions in the future.

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“No civilized country would permit tens or hundreds of foreign nationals to enter its borders with the freely-stated purpose of violating state order, laws and legal provisions, or in order to promote an ideological position that challenges that state’s sovereignty,” Law Center Director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner said on Thursday. “It is inconceivable that Israel is the only state that allows this,” she said, adding that the law center believes Israel’s decision to deport activists from the 2010 Gaza Mavi Marmara flotilla ship without prosecuting them had resulted in “significant damage to Israel’s policies and its image and in serious injuries to IDF soldiers.”

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