In recent weeks, LGBT organizations have been celebrating 'Pride Month' at various events across the country - and the Ramat Gan Municipality has hung hundreds of flags throughout the city to identify with them.
A city resident, who wanted to protest the municipality's support for LGBT people, hung a protest sign against the municipality above the entrance to his business.
In response to hanging the sign, the municipality fined him with three reports issued to him within a few days, totaling 730 NIS per report, claiming that he violated the municipal bylaw regarding signage and even removed the sign from its place.
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Attorney Menashe Yado Mhonenu, representing the resident, wrote a letter to Ramat Gan Mayor Carmel Shama demanding that the persecution of the resident cease.
In his letter, Yado addresses Shamma and protests the gagging that, according to him, the municipality is resorting to: "Every year, Ramat-Gan has been wrapped in LGBT flags. My client, whose voice of protest against the spirit of pride that adorns the city is already familiar to the municipality from previous years, contacted me this year again regarding the municipality's conduct, which will be detailed below. According to my client, so far he has already received two fine notices for the 'Shema Yisrael' sign and a protest sign against the municipality's suffrage of the city with LGBT flags.
""My client's action constitutes a legitimate protest and a legitimate expression of a dissenting voice. A plurality of opinions is a cornerstone of the liberal constitutional society of the State of Israel. Unfortunately, the Ramat Gan Municipality, which has taken a side of identification with the LGBT community, is not content with slapping the city with pride flags as stated, but also demands that anyone who dares to speak out against it be silenced. Silence by virtue of a municipal by-law is a clearly illegal act.".
Yado emphasizes in his letter that the Ramat Gan Municipality is abusing the municipal law in order to suppress his protest: "Against freedom of expression, action should only be taken by virtue of primary legislation, and for a proper purpose and to an extent that does not exceed what is required. A municipal by-law is not called primary legislation for this purpose, and the purpose of silencing is not a proper purpose. Therefore, the scandalous order of the Ramat Gan Municipality to issue an additional fine notice to my client every day in the amount of 730 shekels in order to suppress his voice of protest, expresses an abuse of the powers stipulated in the by-law regarding notices and billboards, for a clearly anti-democratic and anti-liberal purpose.".
""Beyond the fact that these fine notices have no constitutional or legal validity, they constitute an unlawful threat and harassment and constitute the torts of assault, negligence, and the tort of exceeding statutory duties and provisions of constitutional and administrative law that obligate the authority to exercise its powers towards citizens in an equitable and fair manner that preserves their fundamental freedoms.".
Yado contacted Shamma and requested that the municipality stop imposing fines on the resident, warning that if it did not stop, the resident would file a compensation claim against it.
Attorney Yado: "The people of Israel deal every day with anti-Jewish spirits that, among other things, pulsate strongly from within the government establishment against Jewish expressions and the very existence of Jews in the public sphere. My client is not willing to give up his identity or his permission to express protest in a democratic society, and at our organization we intend to support his just struggle both from a legal perspective and in light of the liberal values of the state, and certainly from a Jewish and national perspective. Our opponents make a lot of noise, but at their core they are hollow figures devoid of any real internal value content, and therefore we have ended up winning the struggle.".
