Hamas has started oppressing Gazans to a deeper degree.  It is ferreting out freedom of assembly - even for innocuous civil society groups that are non-partisan and non-political. Here are emails from other groups of friends that circulated what they encountered:

The town hall meeting in [city name removed for protection] scheduled for today had to be canceled. [Name], the Director for the [host organization], the NGO which invited us to do the town hall meeting, informed me that Hamas Executive Force came into his office and asked him if he is planning on having any activities today, since he brought chairs & drinks and people are gathering around the office. [Name] told them that [Y] is scheduled to have a town hall meeting around 4:00pm. Hamas Executive Force told him to cancel the meeting; and  he had to sign a paper stating that in the future if he wants to schedule any activity he needs Hamas approval in advance. I will update you if any new thing happen.

Tags: Palestine, Democracy and Freedom (or lack of), Gaza //