Isaac Levy, Jewish book seller of Baghdad, Iraq, was today sentenced to one year imprisonment for having published letters in foreign papers complaining against a ban on Jewish papers in Iraq, the Daily Telegraph reported today.
When the government of Iraq banned all Jewish newspapers from Palestine, Europe and the United States and even banned general papers from those countries suspected of being pro-Jewish, Levy wrote letters of protest which were published in the London Jewish Chronicle and the Hebrew press in Palestine.
Levy was immediately summoned before the authorities and charged with “intention to commit a treasonable act.”
The persecution of Levy is part of a general anti-Semitic campaign now going on in Iraq. The correctness of Levy’s complaints was not challenged by the authorities. Levy offered to prove in addition that letters addressed to Iraq Jews were systematically opened by the postal officials.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
