Tuesday, January 1, 2019, 20:01 Under signs reading “Hilltop youths have right too”,
Protesters demonstrating opposite Minister Shaked’s residence; Photo credit: Free use
approximately 400 demonstrators have gathered opposite the residence of Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked in the Ramat HaHayal neighborhood of Tel Aviv, in protest of the remand conditions of three minors detained by the GSS. The minors are being prevented from meeting with their attorneys and their condition is unknown.
Large numbers of police forces are blocking access to the Justice Minister’s residence.
The father of one of the minors spoke at the protest. The mother of one of the other minors spoke to Justice Minister Shaked as one mother to another: “I am a mother, and you are a mother. I ask of you Minister Shaked, this is a matter of crucial importance. I implore you that my son meet with an attorney, that our children be given their full right to meet with an attorney. This is what I ask of you, this is what my heart asks. I ask that it enter your heart as well. That is my entire request.
“Even terrorists receive an attorney, even Demjanjuk received an attorney, but our children, good children who are fighting for this Land, don’t?? I beseech you. Intervene so that they will receive an attorney.”
Michael Fuah, a social activist also spoke: “Minister Shaked, you have started something new. [reference to the political party Shaked recently co-founded] Start it tonight! Already once with the Duma case they lied to you and told you that there was no torture. Don’t let them lie to you again. Stop the injustice. They [the GSS] torture people before they check alibis, before they interrogate, they do anything in order to get a confession. The Jewish Department of the GSS must be dismantled. Take your hands off of the youths. We won’t sleep until they are released. We won’t let anyone harm them,” added Fuah.
In related news, on the afternoon of Tuesday, January 1, the GSS extended until Friday, January 4, the order preventing the three minors detained on Sunday, December 30 from meeting with an attorney. The minors have been interrogated, in violation of the Youth Law without the presence of their parents, and their remand has been extended until Sunday, January 6. The detained minors have not met with either an attorney or their parents since their detention.
Honenu Attorney Adi Keidar: “Just now we received an announcement of the extension of the order preventing the minors from meeting with their attorneys. It appears that the GSS has no substantial evidence on the suspects and they need to make use of the unacceptable means of preventing the detainees from meeting with an attorney, completely ignoring the fact that the detainees are minors. We will demand that the court immediately bring the duration of the order to its end and allow us to meet with the minors now.”
Attorney Itamar Ben Gvir added, “It turns out that the GSS has not learned a thing. Instead of internalizing this morning’s decision [referring to a judge invalidating confessions] and understanding that there is a limit to their ruses and that there is a red line regarding denial of the right to meet with attorneys and violation of the rights of interrogatees. Also in this case they continue to deprive them of their right to meet with an attorney.
“Our main concern is that because there is no attorney present, there is no-one overseeing the treatment and no supervision, and therefore the detainees are being treated in detention facilities in the same way that they were previously treated.”