(14.9.2017) Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel sent a letter on 2 August 2017 to Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, State Attorney Shai Nitzan, and Cyber Unit director Haim Vismonsky demanding that they immediately cease the illegal operations of the state attorney‘s Cyber Unit.

The unit began operation during the second half of 2015 and is responsible for „dealing with cyberspace enforcement challenges“ via censorship of social media posts. This censorship – conducted in collaboration and coordination with social media outlets, including U.S.-based giants Facebook and Twitter – entails the removal of content added by users, restriction of access to certain websites, and outright blocking of users‘ access to these sites.

Adalah Attorney Fady Khoury wrote in the letter that much of the unit‘s censorship operations are conducted without any basis in Israeli law: