Father of minor under administrative order sends letter to Defense Minister

Wednesday, June 8, 2016, 20:08 On Wednesday, June 8, the father of the 15-year old Yitzhar resident banned from his own home by administrative order wrote a letter to newly-appointed Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman requesting that he cancel the order. The youth is currently staying at home following Honenu’s appeal to the Home Front Command. The Home Front Command announced that until there is a decision on the hearing held on the youth’s case at which Honenu Attorney Chai Haber represented the youth, he may remain at home.
In the letter the father of the youth wrote: “A few days ago our 15-year old son received two administrative orders signed by the GOC’s of the Central and Home Front Commands. One of the orders forbids him from entering Yehuda and Shomron for half a year, and the other places him under house arrest at night for three months at his grandparents’ house, without them being asked about it. Also he is forbidden to make contact with approximately 30 of his friends, including a 12-year old neighbor!
“First of all, we are outraged by the very use of an administrative order without a legal process against our son and by the treatment of him as if he is a terrorist and an enemy, a ‘ticking time bomb’. Only with such individuals is such an order justifiable and the orders are meant to be used only in those cases. However this in itself is nothing new. After all, this order follows a string of hundreds! Orders that were given left and right (or actually just to the right…) in recent years to anyone whose thoughts, speech, or actions did not match the political outlook of certain individuals who want to impose it by force on the entire nation by trampling the rights of those who oppose them and by shutting their mouths.”
The youth’s father stressed that there is something else new in the the order, something neither just nor moral, and it is doubtful that it is legal. “While in other distancing orders the youths were always given the option to stay at their parents’ home, here, because our home is in the Shomron, and in the community of Yitzhar, which does not find favor in the eyes of various extreme individuals, he is being distanced without the possibility of being in his parents’ home for a long period of time. And we would like to point out that all of this is without an indictment and a legal process which means there is no possibility of defending ourselves.”
Additionally the father wonders how the State can use an official order to obligate someone to stay in the home of certain individuals without them being asked about it first. The father also mentioned that his son’s school, most of his friends and also frameworks in which he works are all located in Yehuda and Shomron.
“What do they think that the youth will do now? Sleep on the street and be idle for half a year? There are expectations from you, the newly-appointed Defense Minister, in the general population and even more so among the residents of Yehuda and Shomron from which you come, to correct the serious injustices in the security and values conduct of the previous defense minister. The matter of the administrative orders served to many residents of Yehuda and Shomron is one of them. In terms of values, perhaps one of the most serious. We hope that you will stand up to the many expectations of you and show a new direction in values and morals and return the clear discernment between friend and foe, even if he differs politically.”