Signs End Of the HISTORY Not End Of the WORLD . . . : Tel Aviv rally against police brutality turns violent (Tel Aviv perhimpunan menentang kekejaman polis bertukar ganas)

REVIEW 2012: (Publishid: 24 June, 2012) Video of Dafni Leef's arrest on Friday. Courtesy Youtube user boazgu7 (Video penangkapan Dafni Leef pada hari Jumaat. Ihsan Youtube panduan boazgu7)

Lebih 6,000 Israel telah mengambil bahagian dalam perhimpunan menentang kekejaman polis di tengah Tel Aviv. Demonstrasi itu bertukar menjadi ganas, dengan laporan pertempuran antara polis dan penunjuk perasaan. Kira-kira 85 orang telah ditangkap sepanjang malam. Media Israel melaporkan bahawa pertempuran antara polis dan penunjuk perasaan yang berlaku sebagai penunjuk perasaan cuba menolak garisan polis lalu dan perarakan dari Habima Square Rabin Square. Tingkap-tingkap juga telah pecah, dan 1 kumpulan orang dilaporkan mengurung diri mereka dalam sebuah bank. Penunjuk perasaan juga menyekat lalu lintas di atas lebuh raya utama Tel Aviv.

Demonstrasi besar-besaran Sabtu ini berlaku sehari selepas polis menahan 12 aktivis pembangkang pada perhimpunan lain, di mana penunjuk perasaan cuba untuk membina semula kem khemah mewah ‘capital's posh Rothschild Boulevard’, tempat perkhemahan jisim bagi aktivis keadilan sosial hanya setahun yang lalu. Antara mereka yang ditahan adalah wanita di sebalik protes besar-besaran tahun lepas, Dafni Leef, serta pelakon Tomer Sharon. Sebuah video yang dihantar online menunjukkan polis yang bergelut dengan Leef kerana beliau terletak di atas tanah, sebagai "orang ramai memuji-muji Percuma Dafni!"

Leef kemudian muncul di televisyen dengan lengan banyak dibalut dan berkata perbalahan dengan pihak polis meninggalkan dengan tulang rusuk patah. Pembangkang bertindak balas terhadap tangkapan Jumaat dengan berkata kerajaan telah mengambil langkah-langkah yang menindas untuk mencegah memutarkan lagi protes jangka berjalan keadilan sosial tahun lalu, di mana berpuluh-puluh kem khemah yang muncul di Tel Aviv dan bandar-bandar utama yang lain.

"Polis Israel bertindak kerana ia di negeri polis, dan bukannya negara demokrasi," Zehava Gal-On, pemimpin sosial liberal Meretz parti berkata, seperti yang dipetik oleh Jerusalem Post. "Ia telah menjadi 1 instrumen politik yang menindas kerajaan, terhadap semua kumpulan yang membantah. Kita lihat pada Rothschild Boulevard bagaimana polis telah berkhidmat dengan Kerajaan dan bukannya hukum."

Pemimpin Parti Buruh Shelly Yechimovich juga tidak cincang kata-katanya. "Walaupun Awam Keselamatan Menteri (Yitzhak) Aharonovitch kepada saya dengan jelas di Knesset bahawa ada adalah tiada perintah tinggi mengambil langkah-langkah yang keras terhadap penunjuk perasaan pergerakan itu, ia bertukar keluar bahawa yang kerajaan dan cawangan operasi yang telah diputuskan tidak untuk membolehkan kewujudan protes demokratik musim panas ini, "kata beliau.

Amnesty International telah dituduh polis Israel menggunakan "keganasan yang serius" yang telah melampaui "penggunaan kekerasan yang munasabah" untuk mengekang kebebasan bersuara dan pemasangan berikutan pergolakan di Tel Aviv pada hujung minggu. Kumpulan hak asasi manusia telah menghantar surat kepada Yitzhak Ahoronovitch mendesak bahawa beliau merumuskan arahan kepada polis untuk memastikan bahawa hak asasi manusia penunjuk perasaan dilindungi. Musim panas yang lepas, Leef Dafni, bersama-sama dengan aktivis lain, memulakan 1 siri daripada duduk dalam demonstrasi yang melibatkan beratus-ratus ribu penunjuk perasaan yang mewujudkan bandar kem khemah di seluruh negara untuk membantah ketidakadilan sosial, dan khususnya kenaikan harga rumah dan usang perkhidmatan awam. Mereka juga dipanggil untuk dibaik pulih sistem percukaian dan reestablishment negara kebajikan.

Kerajaan, Benjamin Netanyahu berjanji bahawa kerajaan beliau akan pergi bersama-sama dengan beberapa permintaan penunjuk perasaan. Walau bagaimanapun, protes terus, dan pihak berkuasa yang bergerak untuk membuka bandar-bandar khemah di Tel Aviv pada bulan Oktober.

Protests an overflow of anger due to lack of change (Protes limpahan kemarahan kerana kekurangan perubahan)

Wartawan MYA Guarnieri percaya bahawa penunjuk perasaan mempunyai sebab untuk marah. "Saya fikir memecahkan tingkap adalah 1 perbuatan simbolik yang direka untuk menyatakan kekecewaan sekurang-kurangnya perubahan di sini di Israel," kata beliau. "Kos hidup yang tinggi seperti biasa. Protes yang berlaku musim panas yang lepas telah tidak membawa kepada perubahan bermakna, dan dengan itu kita lihat sekarang jenis melimpah marah-marah ini."

Journalist Mya Guarnieri believes that the protesters had a reason to be angry. “I think breaking windows was a symbolic act designed to express the frustration at the lack of change here in Israel,” she noted. “The costs of living are as high as ever. The protests that happened last summer have not led to meaningful change, and so we see now a kind of overflow of this anger.”

Over 6,000 Israelis took part in a rally against police brutality in central Tel Aviv. The demonstration turned violent, with reports of clashes between police and protesters. Some 85 people were arrested throughout the night. Israeli media report that violent clashes between police and demonstrators broke out as protesters tried to push past police lines and march from Habima Square to Rabin Square. Windows were also smashed, and one group of people reportedly barricaded themselves in a bank. Protesters also blocked traffic on a major Tel Aviv highway.

Saturday’s mass demonstration took place a day after police arrested 12 opposition activists at another rally, during which protesters tried to reestablish a tent camp on the capital's posh Rothschild Boulevard, the scene of a mass encampment for social justice activists just a year ago. Among those detained was the woman behind last year’s mass protests, Dafni Leef, as well as actor Tomer Sharon. A video posted online shows police grappling with Leef as she lies on the ground, as crowds chant “Free Dafni!”

Leef later appeared on television with a heavily bandaged arm and said her altercation with the police left her with a fractured rib. The opposition reacted to Friday’s arrests by saying the government was employing repressive measures to prevent a rerun of last year’s long-running social justice protests, during which dozens of tent camps sprung up in Tel Aviv and other major cities.

“The Israel Police is behaving as it would in a police state, rather than a democratic state,” Zehava Gal-On, the leader of the social-liberal Meretz party said, as quoted by the Jerusalem Post. “It has become a political repressive instrument of the government, against all groups that protest against it. We saw on Rothschild Boulevard how the police are serving the government rather than the law.”

Labor Party leader Shelly Yechimovich also did not mince her words. “Despite the fact that Public Security Minister [Yitzhak] Aharonovitch told me clearly in the Knesset that there was no order from on high to take harsh steps against the movement's protesters, it turns out that the government and its operational branches have decided not to enable the existence of democratic protests this summer,” she noted.

Amnesty International has accused Israeli police of using “serious violence” which went beyond a “reasonable use of force” to repress freedoms of speech and assembly following the unrest in Tel Aviv over the weekend. The human rights group sent a letter to Yitzhak Ahoronovitch demanding that he formulate instructions to police to ensure that the basic human rights of protesters are safeguarded. Last summer, Dafni Leef, along with other activists, began a series of sit-in demonstrations that involved hundreds of thousands of demonstrators establishing tent camp cities throughout the country to protest social injustice, and in particular rising housing prices and the dilapidation of public services. They also called for an overhaul of the taxation system and the reestablishment of a welfare state.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s government promised that his government would go along with some of the demonstrators' demands. However, protests continued, and authorities moved in to dismantle the tent cities in Tel Aviv in October.