{"id":9780,"date":"2016-02-02T10:43:03","date_gmt":"2016-02-02T08:43:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/?p=9780"},"modified":"2016-02-02T10:43:03","modified_gmt":"2016-02-02T08:43:03","slug":"knesset-roundup-february-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/2016\/02\/02\/knesset-roundup-february-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Knesset Roundup | February 2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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The NGO Bill<\/b><\/p>\n

The first reading has been postponed twice in the Knesset and is expected to be scheduled again soon.<\/i><\/p>\n

ACRI\u2019s position:<\/b> The alleged objective of the bill is to promote greater transparency of organizations whose funding comes from \u2018foreign government entities\u2019 due to fear that these interfere in the internal affairs of the country. In fact, all NGOs receiving donations, and contributions from foreign political entities in particular, have long been subject to strict transparency requirements. The bill ignores private donations, which are much larger. The transparency of these donations is just as important, in order to expose different interests to the public. Therefore we believe that the bill is an attempt to mark out, persecute and delegitimize specific organizations that have a different agenda to the government. ACRI believes the bill is inappropriate, anti-democratic and harmful to basic human rights. The freedom to criticize the government and to monitor and assist those who are harmed by government activities are essential practices of democracy. Ironically, the Israeli government boasted in reports to the UN about the freedom of human rights organizations and the government\u2019s cooperation with them, whilst at the same time they are trying to curb their activities.<\/p>\n

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Please click here to read an Overview on Anti-NGO Bills<\/a> and a Position Paper on the NGO Bill<\/a>, written by Attorney Debbie Gild-Hayo.<\/p>\n

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The Anti-Infiltration Law<\/b><\/p>\n

Internal Affairs and Environment Committee | 03\/02\/2016 | Preparation for second and third readings<\/i><\/p>\n

This is a further amendment to the Anti-Infiltration Law, following the verdict handed down in a petition by ACRI and our fellow organizations in August 2015. The Court required the state to establish a more proportionate time period for holding asylum seekers at Holot. The new amendment reduces the maximum detention period of 20 months per year. The amendment is expected to pass its first reading in the Knesset this week, and then to pass second and third readings after a Committee hearing.<\/p>\n

ACRI\u2019s position: <\/b>Like previous amendments, this proposal perpetuates an abusive detention policy, which on one hand affects asylum seekers and on the other hand does not help the plight of the veteran residents of south Tel Aviv. \u00a0Instead of approving the amendment, the State should promote alternative solutions that confirm with its fundamental laws and obligations under the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. The State must find solutions that will allow for both the dispersion of asylum seekers and reduction in the crowdedness of neighbourhoods; examinations of asylum applications and decisions in accordance with internationally accepted standards; promoting initiatives that encourage the employment of asylum seekers across the country, by providing work permits, instead of continued recruitment of migrant workers; and providing access to health and welfare services. Instead of investing resources in detention, the State must invest in neighborhoods where asylum seekers live.<\/p>\n

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Please click here<\/a> to read the response of Israeli human rights organizations to the Court\u2019s ruling regarding the third petition against the Anti-Infiltration Law.<\/p>\n

Please click here to read more on ACRI\u2019s position regarding the recent amendment<\/a> (in Hebrew).<\/p>\n

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The Cultural Loyalty Bill
\n<\/b>The Education, Culture and Sports Committee | 27\/1\/2016 | Discussion<\/i><\/p>\n

The discussion which took place last week, revolved around the Minister of Culture Miri Regev\u2019s proposed “Loyalty to Culture Bill.” The proposal seeks to extend the amendment, known as the “Nakba Law”, which permits the Ministry to deny funding to institutions that commemorate the Nakba, disagree with the characterisation of Israel as a Jewish State or degrade state symbols. According to the proposed bill, the authority to withdraw support for cultural institutions would be transferred from the Ministry of Finance to the Ministry of Culture; fines would be increased and would permit the denial of funding from the outset and not only retrospectively.<\/p>\n

ACRI\u2019s position: <\/b>The Minister of Culture and Sport continues to threaten cultural institutions with unnecessary and non-constitutional proposals. It is clear that the Ministry of Culture or any other government body must not support a cultural or other that incites violence or racism, or supports the armed struggle in Israel. There is no need for this amendment. The Minister of Culture\u2019s proposal is unacceptable and unconstitutional. The bill would infringe upon artistic freedom and provide the Minister and ministry officials with the power to intervene in the content of cultural works. The Attorney General has already expressed his opinion that the Minister should not interfere with the content of cultural works, and ACRI petitioned him to block this dangerous and anti-democratic bill.<\/p>\n

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Shortage of classrooms in East Jerusalem<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Education, Culture and Sports Committee | 01\/02\/2016 | Discussion<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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ACRI\u2019s position: <\/b>We welcome the willingness of the Committee to hold this important debate and to follow up on how the authorities are dealing with the shortage of classrooms in East Jerusalem. In February 2011, the Supreme Court accepted a petition filed by ACRI, stating that the Ministry of Education and the Jerusalem Municipality must solve the shortage of classrooms in East Jerusalem within five years. Now, the 5 year period allocated to the State by the Court has ended. There is no doubt that the authorities did not meet their obligations under the ruling:<\/p>\n

Only 40% of students who are entitled to free education in East Jerusalem are enrolled in official municipal schools. <\/i>This percentage has hardly changed in the last 5 years. The rest of the students have to pay thousands of shekel per year to learn in unofficial schools.
\nIn the last 5 years, only 200 new classrooms were built (and 150 were rented).<\/i>
\nHalf of the classrooms in the municipal school system are inadequate (820 of 1700 classrooms are sub-standard).<\/i>
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The Court ruled that if public education was still inaccessible to East Jerusalem students after 5 years, then the state would be obligated to pay for the tuition of students who enrolled in semi-private educational institutions in Jerusalem. Registration for the coming school year has already started, however the Municipality and Ministry of Education have still not done anything to comply with the Court order.<\/p>\n

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In light of the severe and ongoing violation of the right to education and the failure of the Municipality and the Ministry (despite the blunt remarks of the Court) it is appropriate that the Ministry and Municipality will submit data regarding their preparations to implement the ruling. This should include how many new classrooms are expected to open this school year and the coming years; what mechanism will be implemented regarding the entitlement to cover school fees; and how they will inform parents of their eligibility.<\/p>\n

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Please click here<\/a> for more information.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The NGO Bill The first reading has been postponed twice in the Knesset and is expected to be scheduled again … Read more…<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6600,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[179,12,97],"class_list":["post-9780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-democracy-and-civil-liberties","tag-anti-democratic-legislation-2","tag-in-the-knesset","tag-knesset-roundup"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9780"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9783,"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9780\/revisions\/9783"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}