Army to Avoid Using Dogs to Disperse Demonstrations in the Occupied Territories

Dog attacks Palestinian demonstrator (from B'Tselem video)

ACRI welcomes the decision but still concerned about the statement from “a senior military source” that this practice might be resumed in the future.
 
The Israeli army announced today (June 17) that it will avoid – at least temporarily – from using dogs as a means of dispersing demonstrations in the Occupied Territories. The announcement came in response to an incident that occurred on March 16, 2012.  On that day, during the weekly demonstration held at Kafr Qaddum in the Nablus region, an IDF soldier released a dog on one of the demonstrators. The dog bit the demonstrator and refused to let go for several minutes, causing him serious injury.
 
A staff photographer from the human rights organization B’Tselem documented the incident, and the disturbing pictures reached the press. Following this incident, Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) attorney Raghad Jaraisy sent a letter to the Commander of the Judea and Samaria Division, Brigadier General Hagai Mordechai, demanding that he immediately issue clear instructions to all of his forces regarding the absolute prohibition on the use of dogs to attack civilians in general and protesters in particular. ACRI also demanded a clarification of the rules and regulations regarding the obligation of security forces to ensure the basic right to demonstrate and to freedom of expression, as well as the right of demonstrators to dignity and to bodily integrity.
 
Attorney Jaraisy: “ACRI welcomes the decision to stop using dogs to disperse demonstrations. However, we are concerned about the statement from ‘a senior military source’ that this practice might be resumed in the future. It should be emphasized that the wrongfulness of using dogs to disperse demonstrations is not only based on the physical danger that a dog constitutes for demonstrators, but also on the severe injury to human dignity that this type of ‘means of dispersal’ inherently entails.”