A haredi man who was arrested last Wednesday for draft evasion and was held for three days in a military detention facility was not permitted to put on tefillin after facility staff refused to give him his religious belongings.
According to a report by journalist Mendy Rizal on Radio Kol Berama, the man's family repeatedly reached out to staff at the detention facility. They were promised that they could bring the tefillin to the gate of the base, and they would be transferred to the detainee.
Despite the claim, when the man's father arrived at the gate, the guards refused to accept the tefillin or allow him to enter the base. As a result, the father remained outside the gate, and the detainee was held for three days without being able to perform the mitzvah.
After the incident was revealed, MK Meir Porush (United Torah Judaism) sent an urgent official letter to Minister of Defense Israel Katz, under the title: "Severe violation of religious rights at the military prison."
In his letter, MK Porush claimed that this is not a one-off incident, but a collection of similar recent testimonies and cases in which the haredi detainee's basic rights were violated at military detention facilities.
Porush criticized the treatment of the family and said that misleading them and preventing the soldier from receiving his tefillin are a severe and immoral offense. He demanded that the Defense Minister immediately inquire into the incident and bring those responsible to justice, and to decisively clarify procedures among the command staff at all IDF detention facilities to prevent a recurrence of these cases.