Temple Mount detainee released

Sunday, February 26, 2017, 20:29 Tom Nisani, an activist in the Students for the Temple Mount organization, was detained on Thursday, February 23 on the Temple Mount. Nisani was interrogated and released. At a deliberation on Sunday, February 26, the police demanded that the court distance him from the Temple Mount for 15 days.
The police claim that Nisani tried to walk separately from the other Jews on the Temple Mount and when a policeman prevented him from doing so, he told the policeman that he is a “liar” and thus insulted him and disturbed the public peace. The police also claim that at the police station Nisani was instructed to give his cell phone to a policeman, and before he did so removed the SIM card. Even though he removed the card in front of the policeman and explained that the photographs which the police wanted to examine were on the phone’s memory card, the police claimed that he “destroyed evidence”.
Honenu Attorney Avichai Hajbi, who represented Nisani at the deliberation, presented to the Jerusalem Magistrate Court a video clip in which Nisani is clearly heard not calling the policeman a liar, but rather asking him why he was lying about his reasoning that Nisani is forbidden to walk wherever he wants. The video clip proves that the policeman lied, if not to Nisani, then at least in the police report which he wrote, on which the demand by the police to the court was based.
In any event, Judge Miriam (Mika) Banki rejected the police request to distance Nisani from the Temple Mount and ruled that there is no reasonable basis for the claim by the police that he violated the visitation rules of the Temple Mount.
The police filed an appeal on the decision and on Monday, February 27 the Jerusalem District Court will rule on it.
Honenu Attorney Avichai Hajbi: “The discrimination against Jews on the Temple Mount must stop and the sooner the better. The court in its decision clarified to the Israeli Police that there is a limit to everything and rejected their demand.”
For a selection of cases in which Honenu attorneys represented Jews detained on or near the Temple Mount please see here.