Three Hours to the Day of Disruption, Haredi Lawyer Urgently Appeals to Police Chief: Stop the Violence Against Haredim
Drama broke out just before thousands of activists from the Jerusalem Faction were set to launch protests across the country. While the organizers continue to keep the blockade locations completely vague, attorney Menachem Stauber sent an urgent appeal to the police commissioner: “Stop the brutal violence and selective enforcement against the Haredi public.” The full letter is below.
The tension is at its peak and the clock is ticking down. In less than three hours, major protests by activists from the Jerusalem Faction are expected to begin across Israel, and at this stage the organizers are maintaining full ambiguity and refusing to reveal the exact locations where the blockades and demonstrations will focus.
Behind the scenes, however, the legal arena is already boiling. Ahead of the planned street protests, attorney Menachem Stauber sent an urgent appeal directly to Police Commissioner, Superintendent General Danny Levi, warning of the continued selective enforcement and the severe, unlawful discrimination, in his words, being systematically used against Haredi protesters.
In his sharp and detailed appeal, which followed recent protest events in the city streets, Stauber leveled serious accusations at field commanders and said there had been “a series of grave and extreme events in complete violation of the law.”
According to him, during the recent demonstrations the police used a heavy-handed, aggressive and blatantly disproportionate approach against Haredi protesters. Stauber detailed in his letter the widespread and almost automatic use of severe physical violence, the blatant use of pepper spray, the throwing of stun grenades and the deployment of forceful crowd-dispersal measures, in a manner that aggressively tramples any trace of equality in enforcement compared with any other protest group in the country.
Stauber did not stop at warnings and demanded that the police commissioner get involved immediately, closely monitor the conduct of the forces that will be deployed in the field in the coming hours, and issue a clear order to fully restrain the use of violent measures. “It must be ensured that the rights of the protesters, בראשם freedom of expression and the basic right to protest, are preserved without any discrimination and without bias,” Stauber concluded his letter just as the streets were about to erupt.
