In a similar incident to the case below, Yedidya Epstein was detained while walking near Sha’ar Shechem with an Israeli flag on the eve of Jerusalem Day in 2022.
Honenu Attorney Eladi Weisel; Photo credit: Honenu
Sunday, September 3, 2023, 17:01 In July, right-wing activist Yedidya Epstein organized an Israeli flag-waving demonstration at Sha’ar Shechem (Damascus Gate) in Jerusalem. During the demonstration, Epstein, who is a minor, was detained, interrogated at the police station, and held in custody overnight . The next morning, after interrogation, Epstein was taken to court handcuffed and in leg shackles. As a result of Yedidya’s mistreatment Honenu Attorney Eladi Weisel filed a 42,000 NIS suit on his behalf against the Israel Police and the Prison Service.
In the statement of claim, Attorney Weisel described how the police mistreated Epstein: “On July 5, 2023, Epstein posted an announcement that read, ‘In light of the attack in Tel Aviv yesterday and the repeated taunting and antagonizing of Jews in East Jerusalem, we will gather today at 19:00 at Sha’ar Shechem in Jerusalem. You are invited to come, show a Jewish presence, and proudly wave an Israeli flag.’ Approximately an hour after the demonstration began, Epstein was detained, taken to the Shalem Police Station, and interrogated. After the interrogation, Epstein asked the interrogator to release him to his home with a summons to report the following day to a hearing. The interrogator refused his request.
“Despite the well-known provisions of law, the police officers at the station kept Epstein in custody overnight so that he could be brought to court the next day as a detainee for the hearing of his request for release, conditions that a police officer can not impose. More seriously, the officers not only did not release Epstein, but they did not transfer him to the detention center for remand overnight nor did they provide him with the minimum basic comforts for the his remand at the station. Epstein was placed in a cell at the station, and the officers told him that he would spend the night there. He asked for a blanket and a mattress for the night’s sleep. In reply, the officers apologized for a lack [of supplies] and said that he would therefore have to sleep without a mattress.
“Epstein repeated his request for a blanket and a mattress several times, and the officers repeated their reply regarding the lack [of supplies]. When Epstein hinted to the officers that a detainee sleeping in the next cell had two mattresses, they told him that it was not a good idea to take one of his mattresses because they were disgusting and full of germs. Thus a minor found himself forced to spend the night attempting to sleep in a holding cell without a mattress to lie on or a blanket to cover himself and escape the bitter cold that pervaded the station.”
Attorney Weisel further stated, “The following morning, on the fast of the 17th of Tammuz, the defendants did not hurry to release the minor, a religious youth who was forced, pointlessly, to spend additional hours in custody on a fast day. He was ignored in his cell until close to noon when prison guards came to take him to the hearing. In violation of the law, the guards handcuffed the minor and shackled his legs before taking him out to the street. The minor was forced to be seen in public, handcuffed and shackled, like a hardened criminal, rather than the minor he was, without a criminal record, being brought to a hearing on his request for release on bail. From the street, the minor was picked up in a police car by one of the defendants and taken to court. The minor was humiliated, and his basic rights continued to be violated in court when prison guards brought him into the courtroom handcuffed and shackled.”
After he filed the suit, Honenu Attorney Eladi Weisel stated, “This was a serious and needless violation of a minor’s rights. The outrageous conduct of the Israel Police should be considered intentional hassling of a minor, an idealist and social activist, who set a goal for himself to help return a sense of security to Sha’ar Shechem, and did not reconcile himself to a situation in which an Israeli flag may not be waved at such a central location in the heart of the capital of Israel.
“However, inexplicably, the Israel Police, time after time, fabricates difficulties for his legal protests and indifferently violates his fundamental rights of freedom to protest and freedom of movement. The violation of his rights reached a new height with his detention over which he is suing the police. We hope that this suit will force the Israel Police to come to their senses and change their attitude relating to the lack of the enforcement of law at Sha’ar Shechem. Instead of persecuting anyone who waves an Israeli flag at the site, the police should gird their loins and fight the Arab terrorists who attack flag-wavers and instill fear into anyone who dares to wave an Israeli flag in the capital of Israel.”