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Honenu: Police Admit Posters Supporting IDF Soldier Sela are Legal


selaOn Wednesday, 10 Iyar, police detectives detained a 23-year-old Jewish man in the Kiryat Moshe neighborhood of Jerusalem and confiscated posters in support of Elad Sela found in his car, despite the fact that there is no legal issue with the posters.

Sela is the soldier from Bat Ayin recently accused of leaking military information to activists in the Gush Etzion region.

The detainee was released after several hours of remand and summoned to an interrogation. When he arrived at the offices of the Department of Nationalist Crime in the Central Unit of Shai Police he was told that his interrogation was canceled and the posters were returned to him. The police interrogator informed him that the posters were examined and their content does not constitute a violation of the law.

After the posters were returned they were posted throughout Jerusalem, Yehuda and Shomron. The posters feature a photograph of Sela with the caption “Elad Sela – detained because he gave information to his brothers the settlers”. Next to the photograph the text reads: “Dedication to the People of Israel, Devotion to G-d, and Obedience to the Torah”.

Honenu regards the police conduct with seriousness and reports that it constitutes cause for filing a suit. The released detainee does intend to sue for illegal detention and search.

Honenu: “How can the police confiscate posters on the basis of intelligence information without there being any legal issue with the text of the poster? Apparently the Department of Nationalist Crime is creating new ways to investigate: first detain and confiscate, and only then check whether or not there is a legal issue. We call on the police to immediately cease chasing after residents of Yehuda and Shomron and their supporters.”

Elad Sela was detained on 19 Adar 5775 and the Jaffa Military Court filed a severe indictment against him on 24 Nissan. Sela, a 25 year old father of two and a resident of the community of Bat Ayin in the Gush Etzion is charged with espionage with the intent to endanger the security of the State of Israel and suspected of leaking to Bat Ayin residents documents with which he came into contact during his military service as a non-commissioned officer in an intelligence position in the Etzion Territorial Brigade. The documents involve surveillance by the ISA (Israel Security Agency – Shin Bet) and the police of the movements of Bat Ayin residents, suspicions which arose concerning actions of the residents, and investigations of incidents in which Arabs were injured near Bat Ayin.

Honenu attorney Adi Kedar, who is representing Sela, stated after the indictment was filed that, “The indictment is highly problematic. I think that this is the first time that the Israeli system has officially categorized hilltop youth as an enemy. I think that someone very specific in the uppermost echelons made a very problematic and controversial decision. I hope very much that examining the evidence will help me to refute this claim and that someone, either in the court or the Attorney General’s office, will see fit to get off of his high horse and put the case into its proper proportions.”

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)



One Response

  1. What was the “intelligence information” that the cops were relying on? There track record is quite frankly not good. If it’s an informer, we should know who he is and be able to examine him. Of particular importance would be if he is being blackmailed by the cops and therefore is telling them what they want to hear. There is also the posibility that that there is in fact no intelligence information, but they’re saying that to justify arbitrary, random, and capricious behaviour, motivated by bad instincts.

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