Israel Police arrested 19 Arab Israeli activists during a May 18 demonstration in Haifa protesting the killing of Palestinians near the Gaza-Israel border fence in recent weeks. When the detainees were remanded two days later, the court ordered the police to release them. The bold decision by Justice Amir Salameh of the Haifa Magistrate Court to reject a police request to extend their detention saved the dignity of the Israeli law enforcement system.
All too often, the police succeed in convincing judges to extend the arrest of suspects, using such important but sometimes nebulous claims of their potentially endangering public safety or interfering with legal proceedings. This time the police were publicly humiliated with the media in the courtroom. Salameh emphasized in his ruling that none of the 19 protesters posed a threat to public safety. He also said that some of those suspected of having committed assault required medical treatment themselves.
Most of the attention centered on Jafar Farah, a longtime social activist who arrived at the hearing with his leg in a cast. Farah said he had been beaten at the police station by an officer who viciously kicked him in the knee. The police deny this. They released a statement May 20 saying that the initial investigation showed no connection between Farah's arrest and his injury. That said, a video distributed by the press shows Farah’s actual arrest. He was in good health at the time, walking to the police van under his own power, on his own two feet. The video went viral, as expected, raising questions about the reliability of the police account while bolstering Farah’s version of events.
In this case, it looks as if the police picked a fight with the wrong person. Farah, secretary-general of the Mossawa Center: The Advocacy Center for Palestinian Arab Citizens in Israel, is well-known as a veteran social activist, particularly among the left. Knesset members from Meretz and the Labor Party, and certainly from the predominantly Arab Joint List, know him personally. Some of them responded to his arrest and injury on social networks, contributing to more intense media coverage of the incident and forcing the police to defend themselves.
AL-MONITOR All-Access gives you unlimited access to all our journalism, the full Daily Briefing, exclusive interviews, premium newsletters, and live events — for less than $2/week.
