Ethiopian Israelis protest police brutality
Protesters demand investigation into racism, violence
JERUSALEM, May 1, (Agencies): Clashes broke out in Jerusalem on Thursday as more than 1,000 angry Ethiopian Israelis staged a protest, demanding an investigation into alleged police racism and violence.
The protest started outside the city’s police headquarters with demonstrators blocking off one of the city’s main traffic arteries and the light rail service, an AFP correspondent said.
Protesters waved banners reading: “Stop police brutality, stop racism” and “Today it’s him, tomorrow it’s you!”
They then marched towards the residence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, where they also blocked the road before being stopped by a large number of police equipped with water cannon.
“Enough of racism!” they chanted, some of them waving Israeli flags, others holding up the Ethiopian flag.
“In Europe they kill Jews because they’re Jews, here they kill Jews for being black,” read one placard.
Police said the crowd hurled stones and bottles with police using anti-riot measures to keep them at bay, including tear gas and stun grenades, with 13 people injured in the confrontation.
Riot police unleashed water cannon and chased protesters down side streets in the nearby Besiktas neighbourhood, where they fired off canisters of tear gas, according to a Reuters reporter at the scene. Demonstrators lobbed stones and bottles at police and set off fireworks.
Istanbul police said that nearly 140 people had been detained, although activists said the number was nearly double that. By afternoon most of the protests had been broken up and demonstrators drifted away.
Critics say President Tayyip Erdogan and the government have become more authoritarian in the buildup to June elections.
“People want to express their problems but the government doesn’t want those problems to be heard ahead of elections,” opposition politician Mahmut Tanal, holding a pocket-sized book of the Turkish constitution, told Reuters in Besiktas.
The normally thronged Istiklal shopping avenue leading to Taksim was deserted, with shops shuttered and metal barricades blocking off side streets. Police helicopters circled overhead.
A usually bustling square lined with cafes and hotels, Taksim was filled with police buses, ambulances and satellite broadcast trucks. A pair of tourists emerged from a hotel to find the area sealed off and nervously made their way around police lines.
Much of Istanbul’s public transport had been shut down due to security concerns, and police helicopters circled over the city. Tens of thousands also gathered to march in the capital Ankara, where the mood was more festive, with dancing and singing.
The government had said Taksim would only be open to those who came peacefully and not for “illegal demonstrations”.
“I wish May 1 to be celebrated in a festive mood without provocations,” Erdogan said in a statement.
Five demonstrators and two police officers were taken to hospital, police spokeswoman Luba Samri said.
Jerusalem police chief Chico Edri said the police were aware of the “stormy emotions” gripping the Ethiopian community but called for everyone to act “with restraint.”
The protest was sparked by a series of incidents involving alleged racism and police brutality against members of the Ethiopian Jewish community.
Earlier this week, footage emerged of two police officers violently beating an Ethiopian soldier in uniform, sparking a wave of anger within the community.
Netanyahu called for calm and pledged to take action against those shown in the footage.
“I strongly condemn the beating of the Ethiopian IDF (army) soldier and those responsible will be held accountable. However, no one is allowed to take the law into their own hands,” he said in a statement.
Speaking to Channel 10 television, Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch said those shown in the video had “brought shame on the ranks of the police.”
Earlier this week, Israel’s national police chief Yohanan Danino pledged a crackdown following the emergence of the footage, saying that police “would not tolerate such unacceptable behaviour.”
He also pledged to set up a team to investigate the community’s grievances.
President Reuven Rivlin also backed calls for an investigation.
“We cannot sit back in the face of anger and shouting — incidents such as these must serve as a warning sign, and an opportunity to conduct some genuine and thorough introspection,” he said in a statement.
More than 120,000 Ethiopian Jews live in Israel, having immigrated to the Jewish state in two waves in 1984 and 1991.
But they have struggled to integrate into Israeli society, despite massive government aid.
Police fired bursts of foul smelling water from a water canon and used stun grenades to disperse the demonstrators, who threw stones and bottles at scores of police officers on hand.
The demonstration, that began as a peaceful march near national police headquarters in East Jerusalem, was called after a video clip emerged showing two police officers assaulting an Ethiopian army conscript and arresting him.
Also: TEHRAN: Thousands of Iranian workers held a May Day demonstration in Tehran Friday to demand improved conditions and protest against foreigners taking jobs in the Islamic republic, Ilna news agency reported.
The demonstrators gathered in the centre of the capital near the offices of the House of Labour, the official workers’ union.
“Employing foreign workers amounts to putting Iranians out of work,” was the main slogan on a large banner erected by the protesters, seen in a photograph carried by the semi-official news agency.
Other banners read: “Employers, shame on you, let foreigners go.”