JEWISH TEENAGE GIRLS DETAINED FOR CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

israeljustice.com

 
TEL AVIV -- An Israeli Juvenile Court released two teenage girls who were jailed for non-violent acts of civil disobedience and ordered one of them to be detained under full house arrest until the end of judicial proceedings.  
    The two girls, 16 and 17 years old, were held in custody for five days after they were caught handing out leaflets and spraying graffiti on a wall calling the commander of Israeli troops in Judea and Samaria an evil person. The defendants sprayed a bus stop in the neighborhood of the home of Brig.-Gen. Noam Tivon. They were arrested on Feb. 12 with another two teenage girls who were later released.  
    The indictment also cited charges of retaning flammable material, a spray cannister of paint and matches.  
    "This is a hysterical reaction," Elisheva Federman, mother of the girls said. "A senior IDF officer has detained young girls for graffiti and the dissemination of leaflets. They can't threaten him. They're young girls and this is such a small offense."  
    Federman said the reason police held her two daughters was that security forces identified them as Federman's children. In October 2008, Tivon presided over the eviction of Noam and Elisheva Federman and their nine children from their farm outside Hebron. The farm was razed to the ground and all the family's belongings, including holy books, destroyed.  
    Noam Federman said that there is no precedent for detaning minors for five days for spraying graffiti and it was persecution by the Deputy State Attorney for Special Affairs Shai Nitzan. [In 2008, Nitzan, responsible for issuing many indictemnts against jewish dissidents, petitioned the Israeli Bar Association to refuse Federman's application to the Bar.]  
    The Tel Aviv Juvenile Court ordered Federman to pay a $750 bond for one daughter and $150 bond for the second daughter. Police asked that the two minors be held in custody until the end of judicial proceedings. The court ordered the 17 year-old to be held under full house arrest in her grandparent's house and restricted the grandparents to be present all the time. The court will set conditions for the 16 year-old on Feb. 22.  
    "They consider us criminals," Elisheva Federman said. "According to the law, the maximum penalty for graffiti is a fine."