Last update - 00:00 05/02/2008
Friends of October 2000 victim protest in front of Justice Ministry
By Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondent
Friends of Asil Asala, a Sakhnin resident who was killed in the events of October 2000, demonstrated on Tuesday in front of the Justice Ministry, protesting Attorney General Menachem Mazuz's decision last week that there would be no indictments against those involved in the killing of the 13 Arab demonstrators in October 2000.
The protestors singed a petition to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and to the attorney general, requesting they establish a neutral body to launch a new investigation into the events.
The demonstrators were Asala's friends from the "Seeds of Peace," an organization dedicated to generating dialogues between youth, particularly Arab and Israeli teenagers. This is a group of some 40 people, all in their twenties, and the majority Jewish.
Noa Epstein, one of the organizers of the demonstration, told Haaretz that the goal of the protest was to compel Mazuz to change his decision. "This is a disaster for the state and its identity. Our actions are not sectoral," she said.
In the petition, the protestors wrote that, "had Asil Asala not been one of the 13 victims, our good friend, we wouldn't have known to write this letter today? Asil, may his memory be blessed, was a sensitive and smart teenager who believed with all his heart in appeasement between the Jews and Arabs."
The petition was also directed towards Mazuz. "If the murdered were Jews, you wouldn't dare close the file. You wouldn't dare go against the state inquiry committee (the Or Commission) and its conclusions. But, in fact, you would never stand against this kind of decision if it were 13 Jews. If the protestors were Jewish, even those who go wild, throwing rocks and even carrying firearms, no police officer would shoot and no demonstrator would be killed."
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