Friday, March 11, 2022, 11:15 A 21-year-old Jewish man has been detained for three weeks by the GSS, who attempted to attribute to him the crimes of arson and assault. Initially, for approximately one week, he was not allowed to meet with an attorney. Afterwards, the GSS investigation continued for approximately two weeks, at the end of which the Attorney General’s office declared their intent to indict the detainee. However, they were not able to file an indictment. Today, due to the lack of an indictment, Defense Minister Benny Gantz signed an administrative order extending the detainee’s remand by two months. No charges have been made against the detainee and no criminal proceedings have been undertaken against him.
Honenu Attorney Assaf Gonen, who is representing the detainee: “We regard the conduct of the GSS, the Attorney General’s office, and the Israel Police in this case very seriously. This conduct is that of dark regimes and not of a democratic and civilized state. Our client has been detained for 20 days under very severe conditions while the entire time [the authorities] have claimed that there is insufficient evidence in the case for an indictment; in effect, there is no evidence at all. We will fight the decision to hold our client in administrative detention with all of the legal means available to us.”
Honenu added: “Woe to the State of Israel whose defense minister signs on such a dictatorial and inhumane order. This is a new record for the revolving door policy created by the GSS and the Central Unit of the Yehuda and Shomron Police. When there is no evidence, there is an administrative dictatorship. This sort of thing does not exist in any democracy in the world.”
Several members of Knesset posted tweets on Twitter censuring the administrative order. All translations are by Honenu.
MK Mossi Raz (Meretz): “I demand that the right-wing activist who is administratively detained be either released or put on trial. There are no grounds or justification for administrative detentions.”
https://twitter.com/mossi_raz/status/1502193107835703296?s=20&t=J7VShCLq5tKNLWuORLMN4A
MK Itamar Ben Gvir (Otzma Yehudit): “Dictatorship! Without a trial, without proof, without evidence, and after the investigation yielded nothing. This act is the biggest proof for those who deluded themselves about ‘a government with Gantz’. He is deep in the radical left wing. He runs to chum up to Abu Mazen and detains Jewish youths without a trial.”
https://twitter.com/itamarbengvir/status/1502197366031630336?s=24
MK Bezalel Smotrich (Tzionit Datit): “This is simply intolerable in a democratic state. They started with criminal proceedings, failed to gather evidence and put the detainee on trial, so they bypassed the court with an administrative detention. They should either indict him or release him!”
https://twitter.com/bezalelsm/status/1502198438615818240?s=20&t=JNEC00p4e2aaXzyqoh-xcg
MK Simcha Rothman (Tzionit Datit): “What is a proposal for a fundamental law worth: The rights to a trial that the government promotes? They detain, investigate, the prosecutor files a plaintiff’s affidavit with the court, soon there’s going to be an indictment, and then they discover that there isn’t any evidence, and issue an administrative order… Is there no limit?”
https://twitter.com/rothmar/status/1502208970613833728?s=20&t=X_FwnpmW7oujTe2V1d02Kw