Today (Sunday) an emergency meeting of Makor Rishon employees and the NRG website was held at the system's offices in the Malha Technology Park in Jerusalem.
The meeting was held following the announcement by the trustee, CPA Chen Berdichev, that if the antitrust commissioner does not approve the sale of the newspaper and website to the Israel Hayom group by the end of this week, he will be forced to close the media outlet and fire all employees.
At the end of the meeting, the employees concluded that they must intensify their protest measures against the Antitrust Commissioner, demanding that he immediately approve the media outlet's purchase deal.
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Tomorrow, during Holocaust Remembrance Day, the newspaper's employees' protest activity will be suspended and will resume the following day, Tuesday morning. In the first stage, a demonstration by the employees is planned in front of the offices of the Antitrust Commissioner, demanding approval of the deal.
Makor Rishon's political correspondent, Ariel Kahane: "We have reached a critical situation, to be or not to be. We are on a stopwatch until Thursday evening, when the entire story is in the hands of the antitrust commissioner. Right now, in light of the court trustee's announcement, the disqualification of the purchase by the Adelson Group is effectively a closure. It is impossible for them to close a newspaper in the name of business freedom.".
The editor-in-chief of Makor Rishon, Uri Elitzur, said: "We are in a serious and sad time. If a decision is not made by Thursday, the newspaper will die and become a corpse. A newspaper that does not come out is a corpse, and I am not sure that the antitrust commissioner understands this. We all need to speak out for the benefit of Israeli democracy and freedom of expression. Shutting us up on the grounds of business restrictions is a far-fetched idea.".
