Dozens of activists demonstrated Tuesday night outside the Rimonim Prison in protest of the treatment of the administrative detainees and their being kept in solitary confinement.
The demonstrators, including friends of the detainees, waved protest signs that read, among other things, "The Israel Prison Service is Tough on Jews," and, "Enough with the abuse of the prisoners of Zion."
Neve Schindler, one of the activists who demonstrated there, said: "I cannot believe the fact that the State of Israel uses Jewish administrative detainees as hostages to eradicate democratic protests against draconian orders issued without trial."
Earlier, Yehuda Lubetzky, the father of Yair Lubetzky, one of the detainees who was placed in solitary confinement, attacked the conduct of the IPS: "This is revenge by the Prison Service, using disgraceful and shocking methods that we remember from the days of the Iron Curtain in communist Russia. The attempt to threaten detainees in prison, worsening their conditions and creating hostility and massive pressure towards them from the dozens of prisoners around them - in order to eradicate legitimate protest outside the prison, is a verbatim copy of the KGB's methods."
"I am still amazed and find it difficult to digest that even in the State of Israel under the right-wing government, such draconian methods of operation of orders without trial and political incitement continue as usual. I call on the right-wing ministers to come to their senses and stop today this campaign of harassment that was carried out under their rule," Lubetzky said.
Rabbi Meir Hilevitch, the rabbi of the community of Brukhin in Samaria where an activist was recently arrested by administrative order, criticized in a letter to the residents of the community the conduct of the IPS and the abuse, according to him, of the administrative detainees.
"You must have come across things that are published in the media about the conduct of the ISA and the abuse of administrative detainees," the rabbi wrote to the residents. "I do not want to believe that these things that are suitable for dark regimes, and ruling juntas in third world countries, can happen here, in our dear country, the State of Israel."
The rabbi added: "It is unthinkable that they would harm detainees due to public support for them, and that they would treat them like the worst of the more dangerous criminals. Let's not forget that all of this was done without any external judicial review or basic public reflection."
"From time immemorial, excess power without an external balance and without a real moral compass has been, and still is in our country, a danger that must be warned against."
He also wrote: "I call on everyone whose heart is touched by this and who understands that the actions of the law enforcement officers need to be criticized a little more so that there are no more painful cases, as we have unfortunately known in the past - come and join the protest in front of the detention center."