The police did not present evidence to the court regarding the Eritreans arrested during the brawl in the Hatikva neighborhood on Friday night, and a judge of the Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court on Sunday released nine of the 13 suspects arrested on suspicion of their involvement in the brawl, and criticized the police. "Even these difficult circumstances still require the court to examine the existence of an evidentiary basis."
Violent riots by foreign nationals from Eritrea // Police Spokesperson's Office
Ten wounded people were evacuated from the scene, 10 of them seriously, and the police arrested 2 foreign nationals, 15 of whom were brought to court for remand extensions. The police, like after the bloody Eritrean protests a month ago, arrived without any evidence. Like last time, the police requested that the suspects be remanded in custody without evidence. Judge Benjamin Hirschel Doron harshly criticized the police for the fact that some of the suspects were not even questioned about the offenses attributed to them, and in other cases there was no police action report detailing why they were arrested.
"I cannot understand how the police come to the hearing before me when the suspects' testimony is not attached. Taking part in a gathering next to which there is no action report indicating that the person was in possession of an assault weapon or acted violently does not allow a determination that this is someone who can be attributed dangerous," Judge Hirschel said, adding about one of the suspects: "The suspect was arrested following searches in the area and there is no indication that he was in possession of any assault weapon. I understand that this is a multi-participant event and a real challenge for the police, but I believe that when the police come to court, they must present evidence, or at least an action report on the basis of which the suspect was arrested and interrogated by the police."
The scene of the incident in the neighborhood of Hatikva,
Attorney Oshrat Kirma, on behalf of the Public Defender's Office: "When we arrived at the station, we saw 9 detainees handcuffed to their wrists, sitting on the floor of the station. When they arrived at the hearing, the investigation file was missing, with no action reports and no testimonies. In its decision, the court referred at length to the conditions in which the detainees stayed while they were at the station, and were not even taken into IPS custody when their interrogation ended."
Eritrean rioters in Tel Aviv, photo: EPA
"It seems that the arrest of a significant number of the detainees was solely on the grounds that they were refugees, foreigners in Israel, and living on the wrong side of the city. Removing them from the street on the grounds that they fled the area of the provocation and their subsequent arrest constitutes trampling on the human rights of those detainees. It is the duty of the police, especially when it comes to a weakened population that has no backing or support here in Israel, to be even more cautious in protecting their rights, and not to act in blatant trampling on the rights and in general of the human image of those detainees."
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