A right-wing activist who has been an administrative detention for approximately four months without trial had expected to be released Tuesday morning, but instead was informed that Defense Minister Yoav Gallant had signed an order extending his detention for two more months.
The extension was issued after he had already packed his belongings to leave and his family was waiting for him outside of the prison. He is in his twenties and works in construction in the Binyamin Region.
His attorney, David Halevi, criticized the extension: ‘’It is hard to shake off the feeling that the insane decision of the Defense Minister to leave my client in administrative detention is an act of retaliation against the criticisms that we have in the past raised regarding discrimination by the ISA in electing to free dozens of Palestinian terrorists from administrative detention as a goodwill gesture for Ramadan. I am disappointed at the unnecessary suffering that my client is undergoing as a result of this authoritarian decision.”
Shmuel Medad, the founder of the Honenu legal aid organization, added: ‘’A state that with one hand fights the enemy and the other fights our dear brothers, the heroic settlers, with mandatory orders intended to eliminate the Jewish undergrounds, can never achieve defense and security for the Hebrew nation. To my disappointment, Gallant is implementing an evil policy, fighting the best of our sons with no justification and with no trial or due process, and the security price is being paid by all citizens of Israel."
Mk Limor Son Har-Melech (Otzma Yehudit) commented on the incident, saying: ‘’Minister Gallant, the most failed Defense Minister Israel has ever had, continues to abuse settlers, and this time with unusual cruelty. Even someone who thought that administrative detention is justified, which it is not, could not justify the fact that the Minister and his emissaries waited until Noam Mermelstein had finished packing his belongings and had his family waiting to collect him, before alerting him on his way out the door of the prison that his administrative detention had been extended by two months.”
“If he truly poses a danger, and their true intention was not to abuse him, they would tell him so at least a few days previously, and not at the last second. I will continue to fight for the release of all Jewish administrative detainees, and have already filed a request to visit Noam Mermelstein in prison again. This is a disgrace!”