Detained Temple Mount activists ordered released

Sunday, April 9, 2017 at 16:11 On the afternoon of Sunday, April 9, the Jerusalem Magistrate Court ordered the release of the five Hozrim L’Har (Returning to the [Temple] Mount) activists detained that day early in the morning and rejected the police demand to distance three of them from the Western Wall Plaza and the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem on the Passover holiday.
In her decision Jerusalem Magistrate Court Judge Sharon Larry-Bavli noted that during the previous week a model ceremony of the Passover sacrifice had been held in the Old City of Jerusalem with thousands of participants and had not caused any disturbances.
At the close of her decision Judge Larry-Bavli ordered the case transfered to the officer of the Public Complaints Unit of the Israeli Police and also to the Police Investigation Unit in order to examine the conduct of the police and the individual policemen at the time of the detention, including the strip-search carried out on some of the activists at the time of their detention. Judge Larry-Bavli distanced the activists from the Temple Mount until Wednesday and prohibited sacrificing the Passover sacrifice in the Old City of Jerusalem.
The activists, all but one minors, the youngest of them 14 years old, were detained in the early morning in their homes and taken to the Central Unit of the Jerusalem Police where they were interrogated on suspicion of conspiring to commit a crime in the future, based on their intent to offer a Passover sacrifice in the Old City of Jerusalem on the following day, the eve of the Passover holiday.
Attorney Itamar Ben-Gvir and Honenu Attorney Nati Rom represented the activists.
Ben-Gvir “I would like to express my satisfaction with Judge Sharon Larry-Bavli’s decision, which did not accept in full the demand by the police to distance the activists from all of the Old City of Jerusalem, in effect allowing them freedom of movement. Nonetheless, I look forward to the day on which the Israeli government decides to grant the freedom to fulfill Jewish commandants on the Temple Mount. It cannot be that particularly on the Temple Mount the police prevent Jews from praying. It cannot be that particularly on the Temple Mount the police prevent Jews from fulfilling the commandants of the Passover holiday. The Internal Security Minister must remember that we are in a Jewish state.”
Honenu Attorney Nati Rom added that, “We are pleased that the court accepted our pleas and decided that there is no cause to prevent the entry of the activists to the Old City of Jerusalem. We are pleased that the court is not allowing the police to continue trampling the basic rights of Jewish minors whose only desire is to go up to Jerusalem for the Passover holiday.”
The police announced after the deliberation that they intend to file an appeal with the Jerusalem District Court on the decision.