NGOs petition High Court against police ban on anti-war posters of dead Gazan children

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) and the Standing Together organization file an urgent petition to the High Court of Justice requesting that the court order the police to allow an anti-war protest to go ahead tomorrow in Acre, after a permit for the protest was rescinded.

According to the organizations, the police refused to allow the demonstration to go ahead due to the intention of activists to hold up posters bearing pictures of Palestinian children killed in the current conflict in Gaza.

A statement by the two groups said a police officer from the Acre police station phoned one of the activists and told them that holding up such posters was “nationalistic incitement,” that there would be no permit for the protest, and that anyone found to be holding such posters would be arrested.

The petition demands that the police enable the protest to go ahead, prevent it from being disrupted, and protect the demonstrators.

“A silent protest was planned for tomorrow in Acre, calling for an end to the war, the return of the hostages, and in memory of the children killed in Gaza,” Standing Together said.

“The participants intended to hold pictures of the children, without speeches or slogans. The protest was intended to be quiet, focused, and respectful,” the organization continued, adding that the ban on the protest was “a severe step to silence [us] and the silencing of a legitimate protest.”

Sivan Tahel, head of ACRI’s freedom of speech department, said, “The police repeatedly misuse police discretion for the purpose of politically suppressing protests, even though both the court and the police legal advisor have made it unequivocally clear that this is illegal.”