Opposition leader Yair Lapid urges Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai to issue orders to police to respect those taking part in anti-government protests, following a series of violent incidents at recent demonstrations.
In a statement, Lapid calls on police to “respect the hundreds of thousands of citizens who express their democratic rights, to refine the procedures for the use of force, for investigations and arrests, and above all to ignore political calls whose purpose is to lead to a severe division in the people.”
“It will be a disaster if in the State of Israel, police become a tool in the hands of a convicted criminal used to fulfill the violent and anti-democratic policies of a messianic minister,” the statement says referring to far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
“The police must act with maturity and responsibility and rise above the minister’s desire to ‘fill Ichilov [hospital] with the wounded,'” he says.
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Wednesday, August 2, 2023
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