Haaretz July 20, 2016
Regev Seeks to Cut Off Tel Aviv Cinematheque Over Conscientious Objectors Event
Israel's
culture minister has asked the attorney general to examine whether the
state may withhold funds from the establishment on grounds it is hosting
an illegal event, a charge that the Cinematheque denies.
Nirit Anderman |
Culture
Minister Miri Regev in the Knesset during the preliminary vote on a
private member's bill to repeal the Book Law, Mar. 23, 2016.Credit: Emil
Salman
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Israeli conscientious objector Tair Kaminer released from prison after 159 days
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I'm in Israeli military jail because I won't collaborate with the occupation
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Israeli minister wants the flag on every state cultural institution
Culture
and Sport Minister Miri Regev has asked Attorney General Avihai
Mendelblit to check as to how support may be withheld from the
Cinematheque in Tel Aviv, ahead of an Aug. 1 event for conscientious objectors.
The
planned event, entitled “Who is afraid of freedom of conscience?”
follows 19-year-old Tair Kaminer's release this week after spending 159
days behind bars for refusing to serve in the IDF, as a conscientious
objector against the occupation of Palestinian territories.
A
movie called “Clean Conscience” directed by Uri Barbash will be shown
and Kaminer will sit on a panel afterwards with three Israel Prize
winners to discuss the issue.
The
event is organized by the Festival for Solidarity with Cinema, Activism
and Human Rights, and has been held on an annual basis at the venue for
the past four years.
Regev
wrote the attorney general that Kaminer had asked to be released from
IDF duties “because serving in the IDF means participating in the crimes
of occupation.”
“This
is an event aimed at encouraging draft refusal. It is not refusal to a
specific order, but encouraging general refusal against the army, which
is against Israeli law, a crime for which Tair sat in jail like others
before her,” Regev wrote.
Regev
said she saw it as a “serious situation where a cultural estsablishment
supported by the state, such as the Cinematheque, provides a stage for
activites that violate the law. Therefore I would ask to instruct the
legal authorities to come up with a legal solution to withhold support
to any establishment providing a stage for activites that undermine the
country.”
Pini
Shatz, program director at the Cinematheque in Tel Aviv, told Haaretz
that “since this is about a debate about objectors and not to encourage
objectors, I invite Miri Regev to attend herself and add her voice to
the panel. In any case the organizers are the solidarity festival who
are renting out the hall for this event and we provide this service just
as we would provide it to any other group.”
Mendelblit
has previously permitted Regev to deny funds to cultural groups on
grounds they were supporting activites “against the principles of the
state,” though he has denied her request to condition funds for all
cultural establishments on a prior examination of their activities.
Nirit Anderman
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