The Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following statement after learning that a months-long gag order was lifted today. The gag order prevented Israeli media from reporting on the case of a soldier charged with “harming national security” who is under house arrest for leaking documents that allegedly show that the military violated an Israeli Supreme Court decision to cease a policy of assassinations in the occupied Palestinian territories.
“We welcome the lifting of the gag order imposed in the case of a former soldier charged with leaking military documents,” said Mohamed Abdel Dayem, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator. “Possible violations of the Supreme Court’s decisions constitute a legitimate news story, and the Israeli media must be allowed to report on it.”