The controversy in Israel over illegal wagering sites seems set to rumble on, after a judge overturned a previous decision to block Internet Service Providers who were supplying online gambling sites to customers.
The judge in question is Michael Rubenstein, and he said that the blocking orders issued by authorities were unlawful after the Israeli Internet Association had launched an appeal against them. In fact, the police action in blocking them was seen as being an attempt to restrict freedom of speech.
A List of Banned Sites
The actions by the Israeli police began back in July of 2010, and they started to crack down on gamblers who were getting access to foreign online casinos in the Middle East country. They passed the banning orders to all of the country’s ISPs and gave them a list of all of the IP addresses which were to be blocked. The reason for doing this was stated as being that the sites in question gave punters a “place for illegal gaming for lotteries or gambling”, which goes against section 224 of the Israeli penal code.
The person who gave the order to block these sites is called Major General Bentzi Sau, and he is the Central District Police Commander. He made it clear in his communication to the ISPs that it was his task to tell the companies “not to provide users with access” to the sites on the list.
The police action was immediately questioned by the Israeli ISPs and they pointed out that the sites which had been banned simply had to set up new sites to get around the order. With online casino gaming becoming more popular all over the world it is unlikely to be the last time we hear of such cases.
