The Knesset Law Committee (vaadat chukah) held a hearing today on two reports on violations of rights of disengagement opponents. One report was the brief brief leaked from the Public Defender's office and the other was the one put out by an organization I'm involved with (English version). Three little girls who sat in jail for extended periods came but weren't given an opportunity to speak at the hearing. They were interviewed by the press before the session. If anybody hears or sees coverage of the story in the press, please let me know.

The session was well attended as these things go; even a number of MKs who are not on the committee showed. Yuli Edelstein and Zevulun Orlev sang the praises of our report and made all the appropriate noises. Even Zahava Galon of Meretz asked the head of the Public Defender's office some hard questions about why she backed down from some charges about political bias in the courts that appeared in the brief leaked from her office. The following facts emerged from her response:
1. By law, her office has the right to issue statements independently of the Justice Ministry.
2. She was "asked" by higher-ups in the Justice Ministry to publicly retract the charge.
3. Officials in the Justice Ministry can have her fired.
You piece it together.

Shai Nitzan, the assistant DA in charge of prosecuting disengagement opponents (and a no-longer-kippa-wearing graduate of Netiv Meir) tried to downplay the charges by noting that only 5 kids were detained for the duration of proceedings against them. This was totally disingenuous since it deliberately ignores the many more kids who were held for over a month but not for the duration, as well as the many who were put under house arrest with no legal justification.