person:jafar farah

  • Still too ‘tough on Arabs’ - Haaretz Editorial - Israel News | Haaretz.com
    Police violence against the Arab community in Israel appears part of a racist policy led by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government

    Haaretz Editorial May 21, 2018

    https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/editorial/still-too-tough-on-arabs-1.6098764

    Over the weekend there was a demonstration in Haifa protesting the killings along the Gaza border fence. The violent suppression of this protest and the detention of 21 demonstrators, including Jafar Farah, the director of the Mossawa Center that advocates for Israeli Arabs’ rights, are a further sign of the growing restrictions on the democratic space available to this community.
    The harsh events in Gaza should have brought multitudes out onto the streets, particularly in light of the complexities plaguing relations between Arab citizens and the state. In practice, the protest in Arab society was minor and measured: a partial strike lasting only a day and local protest gatherings. Despite this, the police failed to contain the demonstrations.
    True, the protest in Haifa on Friday evening had no permit, but these are precisely the times when the police must use their discretion and show restraint. They should have used the presence of Farah, a veteran activist who once headed the Arab student union and who for years has been a partner to civic initiatives for Arab civil rights and against racism. A wise police force would have seen his presence as a channel for dialogue and an opportunity for calming tensions. Instead, the police used him to quell the protest.
    In footage taken at the demonstration one sees that the police did not suffice with arresting him but marched him handcuffed through Haifa’s streets as a warning to others. Even though Farah was seen walking, he was hospitalized the next day; relatives said one of his knees had been broken in detention.
    The Arab community is calling for an investigation into the police’s conduct in the demonstration, and the police are expected to carry out an internal probe into the Farah case. But this doesn’t suffice; the violence by the police against Arab protesters appears not random but intentional, part of an inflammatory and racist policy against the Arab community in Israel that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is leading.
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    Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan and Police Commissioner Roni Alsheich talk a lot about the importance of making police services more accessible to the Arab community, using every public platform to announce the opening of new police stations and the recruitment of Arab police officers. But the conduct in Haifa shows yet again that the police showed unwarranted “resolve” while ignoring the ramifications on the Arab community’s faith in law enforcement.
    The Public Security Ministry and police brass must understand that the delegitimization of elected Arab officials and prominent Arab activists, as well as the suppression of any political protest by brutal arrests, won’t contribute to a sense of trust. On the contrary, police violence against Arab citizens widens the circle of mutual suspicion and deepens this community’s alienation.

    • By +972 Blog |Published May 21, 2018
      ’Police broke my knee, threatened my doctors,’ Arab civil society leader tells court
      By Oren Ziv, Yael Marom, and Meron Rapaport
      https://972mag.com/police-broke-my-knee-threatened-my-doctors-arab-civil-society-leader-tells-court/135621

      Seven require medical treatment for injuries sustained during their arrests or while in custody, including Jafar Farah, who says an officer broke his knee inside the police station. Police file criminal complaint against Arab MK Ayman Odeh for calling the officers who refused to let him visit a hospitalized protester ‘losers’.
      (...)
      “But we shouldn’t be surprised by police violence and this isn’t that big a story,” Atrash continued. “What are a few punches compared to the murder of children in Gaza? What’s important is that all of us in Haifa, Gaza, Ramallah or Beirut — we are one. We don’t want nicer police officers, we want the apartheid regime to end.”
      (...)
      ”The demonstration on Friday was the third to take place in Haifa last week, and police had already employed aggressive tactics to try to shut them down. In addition to several arrests at the protests themselves, police arrested and detained a number of Palestinian and Jewish activists in Haifa to deter them from participating in and organizing protests.

      #Jafar_Farah

  • En Israël, l’extrême droite se déchaîne, en toute impunité | Mediapart

    http://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/310714/en-israel-lextreme-droite-se-dechaine-en-toute-impunite?onglet=full

    En Israël, l’extrême droite se déchaîne, en toute impunité

    31 juillet 2014 | Par Pierre Puchot

    En Israël, il ne se passe désormais plus trois jours sans qu’une manifestation contre la guerre à Gaza ne fasse l’objet d’une violente répression de la part des militants d’extrême droite. Jafar Farah dirige le centre Mossawa, dédié à l’étude des discriminations subies par la communauté arabe en Israël. « Une manifestation de haine à cette échelle, plus seulement de la part des colons de Cisjordanie, je n’ai jamais vu cela, c’est un phénomène nouveau », dit-il.

    #israel #extrême_droite

  • En Israël, l’extrême droite se déchaîne, en toute impunité | Mediapart
    Par Pierre Puchot

    http://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/310714/en-israel-lextreme-droite-se-dechaine-en-toute-impunite?onglet=full

    De notre envoyé spécial à Haïfa. En Israël, il ne se passe désormais plus trois jours sans qu’une manifestation contre la guerre à Gaza ne fasse l’objet d’une violente répression de la part des militants d’extrême droite, souvent armés de barres de fer et défilant aux cris de « mort aux Arabes ! ». À Tel Aviv, la manifestation de samedi 26 juillet, qui a rassemblé 5 000 personnes, a dû être fortement encadrée par les forces de l’ordre, ce qui n’a pas empêché les incidents, comme on peut le voir dans cette vidéo, et le séjour à l’hôpital de plusieurs dizaines d’opposants à la guerre en cours.

    Le phénomène a pris une ampleur considérable depuis le 18 juillet dernier à Haïfa, lorsque des milliers de militants ont attaqué une manifestation contre l’offensive terrestre à Gaza, et battu notamment l’adjoint au maire Suhail Assad : « J’ai eu peur pour ma vie et celle de mon fils », nous confiait la semaine passée cet élu âgé de 62 ans. « Ils étaient des milliers quand nous n’étions que quelques centaines. Heureusement, des citoyens se sont parfois interposés, sans quoi je ne sais pas bien comment cela aurait fini. »

    À Haïfa, la communauté arabe est l’une des plus importantes d’Israël. Un lointain souvenir de la ville d’avant 1948, avant le grand exode et les centaines de milliers de Palestiniens expulsés à travers tout le pays, ce que les Palestiniens appellent la Nakba, la « catastrophe ».

    Ancien journaliste, déjà très actif lors de la guerre du Liban en 1982 alors qu’il était étudiant, Jafar Farah (dont on peut aussi lire un portrait ici) dirige le centre Mossawa, dédié à l’étude des discriminations que subit en Israël la communauté arabe (20 % de la population totale du pays) et au lobbying auprès des institutions, du parlement et du gouvernement pour qu’elles cessent. « Les Juifs de Haïfa ne comprennent pas ce que les Arabes ressentent quand Gaza est bombardée, estime Jafar Farah. Ils ne comprennent pas pourquoi nous sommes en colère. Ils nous regardent et nous disent : "Mais comment, vous devriez être contents, Israël vous protège aussi." Contents ? Contents que les réfugiés soient tués, encore et encore ? Eux voudraient que nous soyons contents, faute de quoi, nous sommes considérés comme des traîtres, comme une cinquième colonne qu’il faut transférer en dehors d’Israël. C’est ce que pense Liberman (le ministre d’extrême droite des affaires étrangères – ndlr). » Entretien avec Jafar Farah.

    • Forced to … « LRB blog
      http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2014/07/25/yonatan-mendel/forced-to

      Living in Israel during the last three weeks has been political hell. I won’t say ‘Isra-hell’, a word posted on Facebook by the Israeli actress Orly Weinerman: she was attacked by a mob of Israeli artists who called on her to leave the country and denounced her personal life. Others in the performing arts have run into trouble for voicing doubts about the latest onslaught. A group of Israeli directors who called for an end to the war at the Cinémathèque festival in Jerusalem were also heavily criticised; the minister of culture called them a ‘disgrace’. Anti-war demonstrations in Tel Aviv and Haifa have run into violence from ultra-nationalists chanting ‘Mavet la-Aravim’ and ‘Mavet la-Smolanim’ (‘Death to the Arabs’ and ‘Death to the leftists’). People I know are afraid to speak against the war in their workplace.