Inside Zionist regime, heavy punishments in Order to Silence Unrests

Last week the Zionist regime proved it has been enlisted in the regime’s battle against those who criticize the government, and to this end it is prepared to restrict the any expression of its people.

Last Wednesday the prosecution asked the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court to sentence activist and lawyer Barak Cohen, leader of the anti-banking group Ba’im Labanka’im, to a year in prison and a huge amount of fine after he was convicted in June of insulting a public servant and obstructing the regime’s policeman while in duty.

According to the prosecution, Cohen must serve a year in prison because the intelligence coordinator at Jerusalem’s Moriah police station, Alon Hamdani, was offended by comments Cohen posted on Facebook, particularly a video in June 2014, in which Cohen sang a song comparing him to “a green-eyed snake” that “roams the streets, collecting and harassing, swallowing people up,” who “hits the children without mercy.” Prosecutors say that it wasn’t just a song, but a series of posts condemning Hamdani that appeared over the course of a year.

Cohen argued that the song and the posts were a response to Hamdani’s inappropriate approach and invalid methods used against activists, but his claims were rejected by Judge Dana Amir, who ruled that posts constituted a “campaign of insults.”

But for the prosecution it wasn’t enough that Cohen was convicted. It wants to send a message to anyone who would dare criticize the regime, by demanding a heavy sentence be imposed on Cohen.

Indeed, the prosecutor treated Cohen like a particularly dangerous criminal, saying that he “drew a target on Hamdani’s body, and metaphorically ‘fired’ with intent to harm him.” The lawyer asked the court to crack down on Cohen and sentence him to the sternest possible punishment because “we know that the accused is very far from returning to the straight and narrow,” and because “he lacks motivation to change his behavior.”

Cohen is known in Israel as a political activist and sharp critic with a blunt style of protesting, one who posts videos in which he insults the targets of his criticism. He has called Culture Minister Miri Regev a “rag” and “undemocratic garbage,” and Zionist Union chairman Avi Gabbay “a fascist pig.”

Nevertheless, the prosecution request to sentence him to a year in prison smacks of “confirming the kill.” Now every one will know the price of criticizing the regime.