Press Release: The Association for Civil Rights in Israel intervened before Attorney-General Menachem Mazuz Wednesday, urging him to provide the police with clear guidance on legal aspects of the right to demonstrate. In recent weeks the Jerusalem District Police unlawfully dispersed demonstrations in Jerusalem’s Shiekh Jarrah neighborhood, arresting demonstrators on no legal grounds in order to discourage and intimidate them: “The severity of this conduct warrants an examination of the events as well as setting clear guidelines, that this kind of policy is illegal and must not be repeated”.
Letter of Intervention [English]
ACRI Attorneys Dan Yakir and Tali Nir intervened before the A-G after two previous interventions on the matter before the Police Chief remained unanswered. They urged the A-G to state clearly and explicitly that the role of the Israel Police is to ensure the freedom of expression and demonstration for all – wherever and whenever civilians wish to sound their protest.
Attorney Tali Nir said Thursday: “The law concerning demonstrations is clear – but the police insist on violating it. We urge the Attorney General to immediately intervene and allow the protest in Sheikh Jarrah”.
Over the weekend, 17 demonstrators were held under arrest for 36 hours, and were all released without conditions after the Jerusalem Magistrates Court ruled that there was no legal basis for their arrest. Hagai El-Ad, ACRI’s Executive Director, who was at the scene to closely monitor the police’s conduct and safeguard the civil liberties of protesters, was also detained. His arrest was widely condemned in Israel and among the international human rights community, including an immediate condemnation by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). El-Ad was detained after approaching a police commander in order to clarify that there was no legal ground for dispersing the protest, nor for detaining protestors.
In their letter to A-G Mazuz attorneys Yakir and Nir stated:
“Attorney General directive reiterates … that even demonstrations of more than 50 people do not require a permit, so long as they do not include political speeches or marches. Despite these clear guidelines, the Jerusalem District Police has chosen a very narrow mode of interpretation that limits the freedom to protest at Sheikh Jarrah. To date, any protest that was not granted a permit in advance, even if it did not include marches or speeches, was declared to be an “unlawful gathering.” It was dispersed forcefully and its participants arrested… Since all of these protest activities took place in a location that caused no disturbance to the public, and only brief chants were sounded, there was no basis for labeling these events unlawful and no justification for making arrests.
“The Jerusalem Magistrates Court… ruled that there was no legal reason for detaining the protesters overnight and ordered their unconditional release. The sequence of events described above raises the suspicion that the District Police chose to use widespread arrests as a tactic, even though it has no legal justification for doing so. It seems that the police tried to deter the protesters and used arrests as a form of punishment and a means of deterring any future protests at the site. The words of a police officer to the attorneys at the court hearing are an indication of the motives behind the police actions: “This is not Bil’in, and the Jerusalem Police won’t let Jerusalem turn into Bil’in.”
