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16 Iyar 5765 - May 25, 2005 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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NEWS
MKs Protest Use of Electric Shocker Against Grave Desecration Protesters

By E. Rauchberger

"How is it that the person who used an electric shocker to strike demonstrators against grave desecration on Highway 6 is still walking around free and has not been arrested?" MK Rabbi Moshe Gafni asked the police representative during a Knesset Internal Affairs Committee meeting on the issue of the Highway 6 affair.

The question was posed after MK Rabbi Meir Porush screened video footage clearly showing an individual from the Trans- Israel Highway Company striking demonstrators with an electric shocker.

The police representative condemned the use of the shocker, saying the person who wielded it was a private security guard hired by the Trans-Israel Highway Company, but Rabbi Gafni pointed out his answer was inadequate since the police are responsible for dealing with a security guard acting in a brutal manner.

Following the exchange the police representative, feeling ill- at-ease, promised to arrest the individual.

In a response to a question by MK Meshulam Nahari (Shas) during the next day's Knesset plenum meeting, Deputy Transportation Minister MK Rabbi Shmuel Halpert reported the Trans-Israel Company had replaced Triple D—the company that employed the guard who used the electric shocker—with a different security company. Rabbi Halpert also said his ministry would reprimand the Trans- Israel Highway Company.

According to a Transportation Ministry inquiry only one guard used a shocker but Rabbi Gafni said the video footage clearly shows more than one guard wielding a shocker.

Internal Security Minister Gidon Ezra repeated his pledge to Rabbi Gafni that the guard would be arrested and questioned. "The police said it is making a concerted effort to locate the owner of the shocker, and I promise everything said at that [Knesset Internal Affairs Committee] meeting will be implemented by the police," said Ezra.

Committee Chairman MK Raleb Majadele (Labor) said it was prohibited to continue paving the Trans-Israel Highway if it entailed harming graves. "The continued paving of Highway 6 is very important but not at the expense of damage to values that are sacred and important to the public. There is no justification for having graves destroyed and this is not an unsolvable situation."

During the meeting MK Rabbi Gafni accused the Transportation Ministry and its director-general, Ben Tzion Salman, who allowed the damage to take place due to misguided considerations.

MK Rabbi Porush said that in the majority of cases where graves were found along Highway 6, understandings were reached with the Trans-Israel Highway Company for the problematic segments. An engineering solution was available for the two desecrated caves as well, but it was not implemented. "The removal of the bones from the graves was done in a brutal and crude manner from start to finish," he charged.

MK Rabbi Yitzchok Cohen also said that solutions acceptable to all could be found and there was no need for matters to deteriorate to the point of confrontation with the police.

The District Engineer for Haifa and the North said the Transportation Ministry sees great importance in paving this segment of the highway and will do whatever it takes to continue with its proper, contiguous paving.

At the end of the meeting the committee decided to wait until the inspection by engineer Rami Manor is complete and until a solution satisfactory to all parties is proposed. The committee also intends to tour the construction site to study the problem firsthand.

Following a request by MK Rabbi Gafni the committee also held a meeting on police violence at the Satmar beis medrash on Jerusalem's Rechov Yoel during Chol Hamoed. Rabbi Gafni presented a video cassette showing policemen mercilessly beating innocent bystanders in the beis knesses.

Rabbi Gafni demanded the police representatives on hand order a thorough investigation of the matter to find the guilty policemen.

 

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