>> At Least 6 Stabbed at Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade
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Six participants au défilé de la Gay Pride de Jérusalem ont été blessés, ce mercredi 29 juillet, par un homme qui les a attaqués à coups de couteau, selon les services de sécurité et de santé. Deux des victimes sont dans un état grave, a précisé le Magen David Adom, l’équivalent israélien de la Croix-Rouge.
L’agresseur a été arrêté par la police avant de pouvoir attaquer d’autres participants au défilé dans le centre de la ville, selon la police. Selon le quotidien israélien Haaretz, il s’agit de Yishai Shlissel, un juif ultraorthodoxe qui avait déjà attaqué au couteau trois participants à la Gay Pride de Jérusalem en 2005. Il avait été libéré de prison il y a trois semaines après avoir purgé une peine de dix années d’emprisonnement pour tentative d’assassinat et agression aggravée.
Les médias, très critiques envers la police, ont révélé qu’Yishai Shlissel avait publié sur Internet une lettre dénonçant « l’abomination » que constituait, selon lui, la tenue d’une Gay Pride à Jérusalem sans que cela provoque de réaction de la part des forces de l’ordre. Un porte-parole de la police s’est contenté de répondre qu’un « très important dispositif de sécurité » avait pourtant été déployé autour de la marche pour tenter d’éviter toute agression.
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Environ 5 000 personnes étaient attendues pour cet événement, pour lequel plusieurs centaines de policiers avaient été sollicités. Une quinzaine d’activistes d’extrême droite avaient reçu l’autorisation pour protester près de la grande synagogue.
S’il s’agit de la plus grave agression recensée depuis des années contre des homosexuels, la communauté gay israélienne avait déjà été endeuillée en 2009 lorsqu’un homme avait ouvert le feu dans un centre d’aide aux jeunes homosexuels à Tel-Aviv, faisant deux morts et une quinzaine de blessés.
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Les deux grands rabbins d’Israël, David Lau et Yitzhak Yossef, ont fermement condamné cette agression, en soulignant qu’elle allait « à l’encontre de la voie de la Torah juive ». Le premier ministre israélien, Benyamin Nétanyahou, a quant à lui dénoncé une attaque « très grave ».
« Son auteur sera jugé. L’Etat d’Israël respecte la liberté privée de chacun qui est un des principes fondamentaux en vigueur dans notre pays. Nous devons nous assurer que tout homme et toute femme puissent vivre en toute sécurité de la façon qu’ils ont choisie. »
En plus de la reconnaissance des mariages homosexuels contractés en dehors du pays et de la légalisation des adoptions par des couples de même sexe, il existe de nombreux autres exemples de lois destinées à faire avancer les droits des homosexuels, comme l’adoption d’une politique anti-discriminatoire au sein de l’armée israélienne dès 1993. La question est de savoir si le virement religieux qu’est en train de vivre Israël risque ou non de rogner ces droits acquis au cours des vingt dernières années.
Solidarité avec les victimes. Courage aux proches et familles.
avec l’AFP
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>> At least six people were stabbed at Jerusalem’s annual Gay Pride Parade on Thursday.
The suspected attacker was identified as the same man behind the attack on the 2005 parade, recently released from prison.
One woman was critically wounded, Magen David Adom emergency services reported, adding that two men were moderately wounded, and another two men and a woman suffered light wounds. Magen David Adom emergency services treated the victims on the scene, and then rushed them to three different hospitals in Jerusalem.
Police confirmed that the suspected stabber is Yishai Schlissel, a Haredi man from Modiin Ilit who stabbed three participants in the 2005 Gay Pride march. He was recently released from prison after serving a 10-year sentence.
Thousands of people took part in the march, which was heavily secured by police. In the Keren Hayesod Street, a haredi man broke into the crowd and stabbed several of the marchers. He was quickly wrestled down by police and arrested. Minutes after the stabbing, organizers and police agreed the march will go on and terminate in the agreed upon location in Liberty Bell Park.
Yishai Schlissel walks through a Gay Pride parade and is just about to pull a knife from under his coat and start stabbing people in Jerusalem, Thursday, July 30, 2015. AP
Schlissel was sentenced for 12 years in prison for the 2005 attack after his conviction on charges of attempted murder and aggravated assault. However, in 2007, following an appeal, the Supreme Court mitigated his sentence to 10 years.
After his release, Schlissel returned to his hometown, where residents said that he distributed hand-written pamphlets in which he called on « all Jews faithful to God » to risk « beatings and imprisonment » for the sake of preventing the parade.
The Judea and Samaria Police District said after the attack that they were not supposed to track Schlissel after his release, even though he resides in their jurisdiction, because his crime was perpetrated in the Jerusalem district.
Jerusalem District Police chief Moshe Edry said police didn’t have concrete intelligence that Schlissel was in the area of the parade. « We were prepared for every scenario, but our perimeter was breached. This is a severe, hard incident, which required us to investigate to find out what fault cause this breach, » he said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the stabbing was a very serious event, and promised that the state will bring the full weight of the law against the suspects.
« In the state of Israel the individual’s freedom of choice is one of basic values. We must ensure that in Israel, every man and woman lives in security in any way they choose. That’s how we acted in the past and how we’ll continue to act. I wish the wounded a speedy recovery, » he said in a statement.
Benzi Gopstein, chairman of the right-wing group Lehava, said that while activists from his organization staged a protest against the « abomination parade, » they « oppose the stabbing of Jews. » He called on the police not to allow the parade to take place in Jerusalem again.
Police had granted a permit to 30 right-wing activists to protest against the event near the Great Synagogue, not far from the marchers. Earlier on Thursday, Israel Police arrested right-wing extremist Baruch Marzel though they denied the arrest had anything to do with the city’s annual Gay Pride Parade. Marzel is a member of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party and usually takes part in the annual protest against the parade.
Opposition leader Isaac Herzog called the stabbing a « heinous hate crime » and urged the police to allow gay pride events to go on. « Don’t give in to the enemies of everything that’s good and beautiful about Israel, » he said in a Facebook message.
Education Minister and Habayit Hayehudi chairman Naftali Bennett called the stabbing a « moral crime that cannot be forgiven. »
« Whoever did it harmed Jewish and moral values, and must be punished with the utmost severity. When events are clarified Israeli society must do some soul searching to understand how it has come to this, » Bennett said.
The Israeli National LGBT Task Force severely condemned the attack, saying that « they feel shocked that serious violent incidents such as this still happen in Israel in 2015. »
The Anti-Defamation League extended its solidarity with the LGBT community. « We are shocked and horrified by this heinous attack on a parade that is widely attended and includes government representatives and political leaders, » the organization said in a statement.
