Jerusalem Municipality threatened with legal action over modesty signs
In letter to Mayor Nir Barkat, Israel Religious Action Center demands immediate removal of signs restricting women's freedom of movement in public domain, saying posters 'illegally violate women's basic rights.'
In a letter to Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, the movement's Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC) argued that that signs seeking to restrict women's freedom of movement and the way they dress in the public domain violate their basic rights and constitute a legal offense.
The IRAC turned to the municipality following the recent legal victory of four women from Beit Shemesh, who received financial compensation after suing their municipality over similar signs posted in the city by radical haredi groups. According to the IRAC, the controversial signs should be removed immediately as they include "extremely offensive messages against women."
According to the IRAC's representative, Attorney Orly Erez-Lachovsky, "The 'modesty signs' crush important values of equality and dignity, personal freedom and autonomy, which are incorporated in Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty."
She added that the mayor's authority to supervise the city's signposts includes a duty to exercise his authority, especially in cases in which impact women.
'It's the municipality's responsibility'
Attorney Erez-Lachovsky based her arguments on a report issued by the team appointed to look into the exclusion of women in the public domain, which was adopted by the attorney general about two years ago and states that "these signs express an illegitimate message that women are not free to use every part of the public domain they choose to, or that walking on a certain path depends on dressing in a certain way."
"The local authority, in general, must avoid permitting such signs within its boundaries, especially signs posted in the public domain itself," Erez-Lachovsky added. "When using its enforcement authorities, the local authorities must consider the serious damage caused by such signs and act immediately and undauntedly not only to remove them from the public domain, but also to prosecute those in charge of illegally posting them."
The IRAC concluded its letter by warning that "the authorities given to the municipality and mayor to license and supervise the signs obligate them to exercise this authority and remove any illegal and discriminating signs. A failure to remove the modesty signs provides the affected women with a cause for filing a damages claim against the municipality and the mayor."
Legal precedent
About three weeks ago, in a legal precedent, four women from Beit Shemesh each received NIS 15,000 (about $3,852) after suing their municipality through IRAC for failing to remove discriminatory and illegal signs posted in haredi neighborhoods.
"The signs were meant to limit the use of the public domain by all women," Judge David Gideoni wrote in his ruling. "This could create an expectation or understanding that the area in which the sign was posted belongs in practice to a certain population."
While modesty signs have been hanging in Jerusalem's haredi neighborhood for years, the municipality insisted in its response that it "regularly removes these illegal signs, and has been doing so even before the ruling against the Beit Shemesh Municipality. Municipal inspectors operate on a daily basis and have removed dozens of illegal signs so far, and the municipality will continue doing so."
