The far-right government’s response to the current wave of violence has shown a “worrisome trend” of attacks on human rights, the Association of Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) says in its annual report for 2015, released on Thursday, December 10, International Human Rights Day. The report accuses the government of careening down a “slippery slope” of unprecedented infractions against human rights.
A demonstration of Israelis of Ethiopian origin in Tel-Aviv, April 2015 (Photo: Activestills)
A substantial part of the problem is the “widespread adoption in Israel and East Jerusalem of means and methods which had been in use in the West Bank, which cause greater harm to a wider cross-section of the population,” the report says. According to ACRI, “the trend of harming rights to personal body security, to a fair trial, freedom of speech” started during the 2014 Gaza war and has “gotten worse since the wave of violence which started in September.”
The report describes a substantial rise in detentions, including administrative arrests or detention without trial, and restraining orders to keep specific people away from the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The report also slams a Knesset bill that proposes allowing police to undertake a much wider range of full body searches on an “arbitrary, humiliating and discriminatory basis” and says such a measure would create a “gaping hole” in people’s rights. It also blasted politicians and senior police officials for encouraging ordinary citizens to arm themselves with guns and ready themselves to use them in the event of a terror attack.
Consequently, legal limits on the use of deadly force have been ignored several times and there have been several instances in which innocent people have been killed, ACRI says. The report also criticizes the Attorney General for authorizing police to use less lethal Ruger rifles against stone-throwers in East Jerusalem and inside the Green Line, while expanding the definition of where life is deemed to be under threat. The ACRI charges that the introduction of Ruger rifles in crowd-control situations establishes a dangerous precedent towards using lethal means for non-lethal situations.
ACRI also slams multiple attempts to annul the citizenship or benefits of East Jerusalem Arabs and of Israeli-Arab family members of terrorists. The human rights group also complains against police use of stink sprays for crowd control against Israelis of Ethiopian origin and Israeli Arabs, including sometimes spraying inside people’s houses. It accuses the state of making insufficient progress towards addressing social justice and socioeconomic inequalities. It expresses concern that hasty decisions taken during a national security crisis often come at the expense of civil liberties and aren’t always lifted as soon as the crisis passes.
