Duma protesters stage alleged ISA torture (file)
Duma protesters stage alleged ISA torture (file)Nati Shohat/Flash 90

Shmuel Meidad, director of the Honenu legal aid organization, responded on Monday night after certain details were released for publication in the arrest of five nationalist activists.

According to a statement released by the court, the five - three of whom were arrested last Monday and two more who were arrested last night including an IDF soldier - are being held on suspicions they were going to harm Palestinian Arabs.

The court statement accused four of the activists, among them several minors, of "security crimes," without specifying any further. In addition it said the fifth prisoner is suspected of having set the car of a Palestinian Arab on fire and being part of a "illegal association." All five remain under arrest, and the police with the approval of the court continue to ban them from meeting with their lawyers.

Meidad, who was present at the hearing on Monday in which the police requested an extension of the arrest, lamented the behavior of the court and police.

"Unfortunately today it's enough to give a title to a case that it involves security crimes, and you are prevented from basic rights: meeting with an attorney, and sometimes torture in the investigation rooms as if you were an enemy," he said, in reference to the reported torture in the lethal Duma arson case.

"I fear for the well-being of the prisoners," added Meidad.

In contrast to Meidad's concerns, MK Itzik Shmuli of the leftist Zionist Union party and chairperson of the Knesset lobby against "Price Tag" vandalism, lauded the arrests.

"Israel must uproot from its midst this problem of Jewish terror that is directed against innocents due to a political agenda," stated Shmuli.

"The response has to be clear and aggressive by the state without a speck of understanding or forgiving for the circumstances," he added.

Ironically, MK Zuhair Bahloul of Shmuli's Zionist Union party just last Thursday raised a storm when he said that Arab terrorists who attack and murder IDF soldiers are not "terrorists," but rather are struggling for "freedom."