Probe into suspected draft-dodging promoters draws fire

Both supporters and objectors of groups encouraging youths to avoid conscription are accusing police of mishandling a probe into the groups' actions, although police deny this.

On Sunday, seven members of the organizations New Profile and Target 21 were arrested on suspicion that they abetted suspected draft-dodgers in allegedly lying to army authorities to receive an exemption from service.

The probe is currently centered on content available on the organizations' websites. Police confiscated several computers belonging to notable members of the organization. But the complainants against New Profile say the websites are irrelevant.

"New Profile activists break the law not online, but in sessions with teenagers whom they instruct on how to cheat the army authorities, which is illegal," said Zohara Tzoor from the Israeli Forum for the Promotion of Equal Share in the Burden ? an organization promoting mandatory national service for all citizens.

One of the suspects, Annelien Kisch, who immigrated to Israel from the Netherlands many years ago, told Haaretz that while "there may be some youngsters from New Profile who will talk about how they got out of army service, it's definitely not the official agenda. It's like sometimes the army has accidents because of the actions of individual troops."

New Profile's attorney, Smadar Ben Natan, has instructed the suspects to refuse to answer questions on the website. She complained to Shai Nitzan, the attorney-general for special tasks, that police should not have confiscated one computer which belonged to a psychiatrist, which containing privileged information about his patients.

Meanwhile a coalition of feminist organizations warned the public security minister that its activists would flood the interrogation rooms in the Yarkon District station to protest the arrests.

Although the members of New Profile who are under investigation are forbidden to communicate with each other, police have not barred the movement's activists from attending activities with teenagers, some of which are scheduled for next month.

"I fear the police are handling the case very superficially and focusing on irrelevant issues," said Miri Baron, the forum's founder. "We have no issue against free speech on websites. The fact that New Profile is allowed to continue its illegal on the ground operations is a disgrace." Diana Dolev from New Profile said: "We disagree that any of our actions break Israeli laws."

Queried about complaints from both groups, the spokesperson for the police's Tel Aviv District, Avi Tzabri, said: "The handling of the case is overseen by the Public Prosecutor's Office. All searches were conducted lawfully."

In their letter to Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch, the coalition of feminist groups wrote: "We are strenuously insisting on upholding the right to protest against the militarism and the belligerence of Israeli society, and we are expressing our repugnance at the attempts to silence it."

"We are watching with trepidation the assault on the rights and the civilian freedoms of Palestinians and Jews in Israel, which has escalated since the attack on Gaza in January of this year," the letter continued.

"We view the investigation against New Profile as another step in the regime's efforts to clamp down on the democratic plain and to suppress political protest. We call for the immediate cessation of the investigation, the attempts to sow fear, and all effort to oppress and persecute political activists."

Women's groups are planning a demonstration in front of the police station on Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv, where the questioning of the activists is taking place. The feminists say they plan to submit voluntarily to police questioning "because all of us are fighting for a just and democratic society.