Earlier this month, Israel’s premier news channel, Channel 12, aired a report about the escalating violence by police against demonstrators protesting the government’s judicial overhaul.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel’s (ACRI) Freedom of Protest Coordinator Sivan Tahel told reporters that, “The harsh images of citizens being trampled on by horsemen, injured by water cannons aimed contrary to procedures at the heads of the demonstrators, and arrests and violence directed at journalists, are images that have no place in democracies.”
Adi Pinchas who attended a demonstration in Tel Aviv last week in which protestors were beaten and punched by police said, “You saw the anger in the eyes of the police. It was very frightening.”
Although many demonstrators were injured and required treatment, there were no reports of any police being injured. Among the demonstrators arrested was Israeli pop icon Aviv Geffen.