Hearing held for minor under impossible to fulfill house arrest

Tuesday, June 7, 2016, 9:20 The Home Front Command held a hearing on Monday, June 6, for the 15-year old Yitzhar resident who has been served with an administrative order for house arrest which he cannot fulfill at home. Prior to the hearing, a summary of the claims against the minor was presented to his attorneys. The information in the summary is extremely brief and does not mention any specific incident with which the minor is suspected of involvement.
The summary: “According to intelligence information your client was involved during the past months with violent activities targeting Palestinians in the area of Yitzhar and also participated, in a dominant role, in incidents disturbing public order and causing friction between civilians and security forces. According to the information your client continues to lead and carry out activities in violation of the law in the areas of Binyamin and Shomron, including motivating others, among them minors, to violate the law. Also after steps were taken to restrict your client’s activities, your client continues to violate, on a constant basis, the restrictive orders with which he was served.”
Honenu Attorney Chai Haber, who represented the minor at the hearing, stated that the summary is extremely vague and further explained: “Why will they not say how many incidents are in question? Is is 2 or 20? What was the degree of his involvement? Was he a bystander or an active participant? On what are the suspicions based? They refuse to specify the dates on which the incidents occurred and therefore the minor has no possibility of providing an alibi and has no means of defending himself legally.”
Concerning the claim that the minor violated existing administrative orders, Haber stated that four months ago the youth was interrogated once on suspicion of violating house arrest conditions. Policemen knocked on his door and claimed that he was not home. The minor was later detained and testified in court that at the time, he was sleeping in the guest unit attached to the house. The policemen admitted that they had not checked there and accordingly the minor was released in court. Other than that instance, the minor was not detained for any violation of the order, despite the many times that the policemen checked his house over a long period of time.
At the conclusion of the hearing, Honenu Attorney Chai Haber stated that the minor does not have any place to go and will remain at his home in order to prevent a severe violation of his rights and damage to his education. Haber mentioned that it is very difficult to find a host for someone who is under house arrest from this particular population because of the strict police surveillance on them. Policemen arrive every night and knock loudly, waking up everyone in the household and sometimes also waking the neighbors.
The Home Front Command has not yet given a response as to whether they will accept the pleas Honenu made at the hearing or if the minor will be detained if he does not leave his home.