Activist Groups Unite to Thwart Halamish Jailing
(IsraelNN.com) Various activist groups have joined together to declare their intention to bodily prevent two first-response team members from being jailed for defending their homes.
Danny and Itzik Halamish were handed a prison sentence after a Jerusalem court accepted Palestinian Bedouins' account of a security incident in eastern Gush Etzion instead of that of the brothers and the local IDF-appointed head of security (click here for an interview with Danny and here for more background information)
Posters plastered all over the Jerusalem region overnight read: "Prisoners of Zion in Zion! We shall not be silent! We shall say to the judicial system, which denies Jews the right to defend their lives and the land of Israel: We won't agree to the imprisonment of the brothers Izik and Danny Halamish because we too are 'guilty' of the wish to preserve our lives and our land."
The posters go on to call upon the public to appear next Thursday (April 10) at 9:30 AM at the police station in Jerusalem's Russian Compound – where the brother are required to turn themselves in to begin their prison sentences. "We shall be present and prevent this miscarriage of justice," the announcement declares.
Organizers say they are quite serious about preventing the Halamish brothers from being jailed. Organizations participating include the Yesha Rabbis' Council, Honenu Legal Aid organization, Women in Green, Land of Israel Loyalists, Land of Israel Youth, Homesh First, the Committee to Save the Nation and the Land, Manhigut Yehudit, Mateh Tzafon, Nahalal Forum, V'yirashtem Otah, Pidion Shvuyim and the Action Committees of Efrat, Gush Etzion, Kiryat Arba and Hevron.
For updates, activist are invited to SMS the word חלמיש to 052 999 1800.
Efforts to Receive Peres Clemency Ongoing
According to the Mateh Tzafon activist group, President Shimon Peres has agreed to consider a special clemency request for the Halamish brothers. However, Peres's office called the brothers and told them that the clemency proceeding requires 6 months and asked whether they had filed in court for a 6-month deferral of their sentence. The brothers indeed filed the request in the Jerusalem District Court but have not yet received an answer, because "no time has been found in the court's schedule to do so," according to activists. "This is a familiar trick in other contexts -- petitions to the Supreme Court against the release of terrorists have been scheduled for after the terrorists were released, etc."
Activists are therefore asked to contact the court's administrative secretary by fax to the Jerusalem District court: 02-6292522, 02-6292521, 02-6281284 or 02-6291405 (replace zero with 011 972 from overseas). Mateh Tzfon's sample letter reads as follows:
To the secretary responsible for the schedule of Judge Jonathan Adiel,
President Peres is looking into clemency for the two security officers from Gush Etzion, Dani and Itizk Halamish, who are said to have shot in the air and toward the ground (though not at people). As is standard, these brothers have petitioned for their jail sentence to be delayed to give the President time to do so. Unfortunately, the brothers' petition has yet to be placed in the court's schedule, even though it is clearly very urgent since their jail sentence starts in a week!
I ask that you as a good-faith administrator make sure that the brothers' urgent petition is given the proper priority in the court docket so the petition is taken up at a realistic time i.e. before their jail sentence begins. %ad%
Sincerely, (name)
Faxes may be sent to Israel's Minister of Justice Daniel Friedmann at 02-6285438 and to President Shimon Peres at 02-5611033.
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