Guess which state wants to copy dictatorships?

Looks like North Korea wants to bring in some legal reforms. Oh wait:

The [Israeli] Ministerial Committee for Legislation approved a bill yesterday that would allow the state to prevent detainees suspected of security offenses from meeting with an attorney for up to one year.

The bill, introduced by Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch, aims to keep lawyers from helping their clients “carry out offenses that endanger the security of the public or the state from within jail.”

If passed, the bill would authorize the prison director to prevent a detainee from meeting with an attorney for up to seven days, instead of the current maximum period of 24 hours. The commissioner of the Israel Prison Service would be able to extend the prohibition for up to 90 additional days, with the approval of the state prosecutor or deputy prosecutor, instead of the current maximum of five days.

The district court could order additional extensions of the prohibition of up to six months at a time, for a total period of up to one year. The current limit is 21 days.

The Public Committee against Torture in Israel called the prohibition of client-attorney meetings a “mortal blow to the basic rights of Palestinian prisoners in Israel.”

According to the organization’s executive director, Ishai Menuchin, “The ministerial committee is trying to carry out a ‘surgical strike’ against human rights in a democratic society. We must not forget that even ‘security suspects’ have human rights.”

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