8 protesters arrested at Tel Aviv protest released on bail

Police say 8 were arrested after they refused to disperse, blocked road; judge rules against banning the protesters from Rothschild camp.

By JOANNA PARASZCZUK
Tel Aviv protest 311 (photo credit: REUTERS/Amir Cohen)
Tel Aviv protest 311
(photo credit: REUTERS/Amir Cohen)
The Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court released on bail Sunday eight protesters arrested in the early hours of the morning following a mass housing rally in Tel Aviv.
According to the police, the rally was set to end at 11 p.m., but a group of protesters refused to disperse, and instead blocked Tel Aviv roads. They were finally arrested at 1:45 a.m.
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The police requested that the court release the protesters on bail but issue an injunction banning them from returning to the “tent city” protest encampment on Rothschild Boulevard.
Police told the court that they had exercised patience with the protesters, allowing them to remain at the scene of the rally hours after it had been scheduled to end.
However, the eight arrested refused to disperse when asked to do so and some became violent, the police claimed.
Attorney Barak Cohen, representing the eight, told the court that the protesters were “not criminals but the salt of the earth of society.”
“We are talking about the director of a nonprofit organization, students, and working people who came to stand up for their basic rights, and for that reason we should be proud of this generation,” said Cohen.
Cohen also said that police had arrested the eight from among “hundreds of other demonstrators.”
In freeing the protesters on bail, Judge Shaul Avinor ruled against banning them from the “tent city” encampment.
“I don’t find it necessary to accede to the request to issue an injunction banning [the protesters] from Rothschild Boulevard, when there is no dispute that the [housing rally] did not take place there,” wrote Judge Avinor.
The judge instead ordered each of the protesters to pay a bail bond of NIS 3,000.