Temple Mount Protesters Kept in Jail to ‘Calm Arabs’
October 30, 2014Police have decided to keep the five Jewish protesters arrested Thursday morning under detention, after they tried to enter the Temple Mount to demonstrate against the discrimination against Jews at the holiest site in Judaism.
The Temple Mount was closed to Jews and Muslims following the attempted assassination of Temple Mount activist Yehuda Glick in Jerusalem on Wednesday night, although Muslims reportedly were nevertheless allowed on the site – where they proceeded to riot. After international pressure, police lifted the closure of the site on Friday for Muslims.
Attorney Rehavia Piltz of the Honenu legal aid organization was told by investigators at the police’s Merchav David (Old City District) station that the five Jewish protesters were suspected of “breaching public order,” and that they would be held overnight.
The attorney will submit an urgent appeal on Thursday night to the Jerusalem Magistrates Court to demand their immediate release.
“The arrest of Temple Mount activists is for one goal, and that is to calm the Arab rioters,” stated Piltz. “There is no reason to leave them over night in the detention center.”
Piltz added “we suggest that the police exercise firmness against Arab terror which is going wild, and not against Jews asking to pray on the Temple Mount.”
As noted by Piltz, Jews are forbidden from praying at the Temple Mount by the Jordanian Waqf (Islamic trust) which still enjoys de facto control over the site, and whose directives have been followed by Israeli police despite Israel’s laws on religious freedom. Glick has led the struggle against the discrimination on Judaism’s holiest site.
The arrest on Thursday brings to mind another case of police crackdown against Jewish protesters from last week, which occurred at the site of a terror attack last Wednesday in which a three-month-old baby and a 22-year-old woman were murdered.
Police arrested several Jewish protesters there last Thursday, with one young protester charging them of physically assaulting him. Honenu is acting to represent that protester as well.
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