Almost a week after one of the most violent demonstrations in the history of the city of Tel Aviv and the flames refuse to subside.
At least 46 people were injured during a rally held in Tel Aviv Sunday that was attended by thousands of Israeli Ethiopian and their supporters to protest against police brutality and institutionalized discrimination. Several protesters, who were arrested during the demonstration, said they were mistreated by the police while they were being detained for questioning, Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Friday.
According to the detainees, they were kept overnight in a police van and, despite being badly beaten, were denied medical treatment and not allowed out to relieve themselves.
Nebo Ari Bako, 25, had his jaw and teeth broken by policemen’s blows. A policeman pulled his hair, choked him, twisted his arm and held him while another hit him in the face and back of the head with a police radio, breaking his jaw and several of his teeth.
Bako said he threw up as a result, and the policemen told him he would have to clean up the car. He taken to Meir Hospital for treatment only after several hours. He lost consciousness a few times on the way, he recalled.
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Bako was then kept overnight in a police van with some 20 other detainees at the Glilot police station. “Some of us vomited and didn’t feel well. I kept spitting blood, afraid to swallow any of my teeth. Others urinated and defecated after being cooped up for seven hours,” he says. When Bako begged to see a doctor a policeman told him “if you keep this up we’ll break more of your teeth,” he testified.
Kobi Tagania, 28, was not beaten when the police arrested him because, he said, “fortunately there were TV cameras there…A policewoman swore at me and said, if there wasn’t a camera here I’d kick your ass and beat you up.”
According to Tagania he was also kept with other detainees, some of them injured, in the police van. “They treated us like animals…people peed in water bottles and defecated…We couldn’t breathe. I vomited from the stench three or four times,” he said.
“One of the policemen said 'you should be grateful for being brought to this country,'” said Tagania.
Attorney Gaby Lasky, who represented Bako, Tagania and other detainees, said they all complained of police violence.
Lior Golan of the public defender’s office, who represents 12 detainees, said many were denied a lawyer before their interrogation, as required by law.
“Once a person is in custody, there’s no justification for violence,” Lasky told Haaretz. “I’ve never seen so many detainees brought to court with injuries and it’s the first time I hear of demonstrators kept in a police van overnight.”
The Tel Aviv police spokeswoman said the testimonies are “a perverse attempt to slander the police officers who did their duty by law to disperse an illegal protest.” She said the protesters threw stones, injured horses and tried to take over City Hall.
www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/society/70389-150508-israeli-ethiopians-detained-at-protest-complain-of-police-brutality
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