ISRAELI JUDGE CRITICIZES POLICE FOR UNLAWFUL ARRESTS

Israeljustice.com

  TEL AVIV -- An Israeli magistrate has criticized police for arresting and detaining right-wing activists who gathered in a southern city for a protest march towards Gaza.  
    "The use of the power of government and the authority to arrest in order to prevent this right of expression, besides being an act of censorship, shows us that very dark days are upon the State of Israel,” Kiryat Gat Magistrate Nehama Netzer said.  
    Police arrested and detained 21 people, mostly minors on March 12, after they gathered in the city of Sderot, close to the Gaza Strip to protest the destruction of the Jewish settlements in the Gush Katif bloc in August 2005. Organizers said they intended to march to the former settlements but hours before the start of the march, special force Yassam police officers and Israel Security Service agents [Shabak] raided the central park in Sderot and arrested three of the organizers, Meir Bretler, Yaron Kilat and Arieh Davies.  
    "They just swooped in and handcuffed them and dragged them off," Yehuda Biton, another organizer, said.  
    Several hours later, police arrested 18 teenagers in Sderot as they prepared for the march. Most of the teenagers complied with police conditions for their release and signed a $500 bond and a commitment forbidding them to be in Sderot for a week. Four teenagers who refused to sign the bond and the three organizers, Bretler, Kilat and Davies, appeared before the judge, who released them without conditions.  
    "It is inconceivable that they [protesters], whose only sin was that they were in the town of Sderot or intended to arrive there, would be detained, arrested and possibly find themselves held under arrest for another night just because of this wish?" Netzer said. "It seems that the answer to this is clear. Woe to us if we reach days in which people are afraid to express their opinions legally."  
    A fifteen and a half year-old teenager who complied with police release conditions said that ISS agents were involved in the investigation and had threatened him that his details would be stored in a Shabak database.  
    "They told me that you're going to be entered into our security database, so I signed," the teenager said. "The police charged me with suspicion of conspiracy and suspicion of causing a disturbance in Sderot."  
    Police also arrested right-wing activist Daniella Weiss but released her several hours later.  
    "We'll come back again and again as we have done previously when we've been harassed and arrested by the police," Menashe Levinger, one of the organizers, said. "They destroyed our outposts, including Maoz Esther [near the West Bank Jewish community of Kedumim] but we rebuilt it the next day.  
    Earlier, a Kfar Saba Magistrates Court criticized police for using illegal tactics to arrest Jewish residents following the violent destruction of Maoz Esther by security forces.  
    On March 26, about 15 special police officers used provocateur tactics to arrest Jewish residents at the neighboring Gilad Farm. Police parked their van inside the farm and several officers, disguised as Arabs, left the vehicle and began to examine the tires. Jewish residents, fearing a copycat terror attack by Arabs who previously killed two Jewish policemen in the Jordan Valley as they pretended to fix their car tires, began throwing rocks. At that point, residents said, about 15 Yassam officers jumped out of the van and arrested five residents and charged them with aggravated assault.  
    A day later, Judge David Gadol released the Jews to house arrest but criticized the police for "endangering lives."  
    "The police disguised themselves as Arabs, a provocative action that incited the residents into stoning them," Gadol said.