Parents of Mordechai Mayer: ‘Our Son Was With Us on Night of Arson’
Parents of Mordechai Mayer, 18, who was locked up in administrative detention for 6 months, demand his release.
The parents of Mordechai Mayer, 18, of Maaleh Adumim, are demanding his release, one week after he was thrown into jail with a six-month administrative detention order.
“A week ago, police knocked on our house door at night, presented a sheet of paper with your signature and took our son to six months’ detention in jail,” the two wrote in a letter to Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon.
They stressed that their son was never told what he is suspected of, was never charged with an offense and never faced a legal process of any kind. Furthermore, they argued, there is no way he could have carried out what he is being accused of.
Mayer’s parents have previously accused Israeli authorities of “scapegoating” their son.
“The administrative detention came as a response to the event at the village of Duma,” they wrote, “even though it is known that Mordechai is not connected to it. On the night of the event, our son was with us at home, as you know. After the arson at the Church of Bread and Fish, too, he was interrogated and harassed but no evidence or charges were ever brought.
“The administrative detention that our son was sent to was intended for media purposes, to show false picture, as if people connected to the events have been located. As US citizens, who made aliyah from the US our of a love for Israel, we are ashamed that you behaed this way. We thought that the state of Israel was a democracy and that it has a regulated legal system, and now we discover that it is sometimes a dictatorship,” they wrote.
Mayer is the first Jew arrested by administrative order in nine years. His arrest was followed by those of Meir Etinger and Evyatar Slonim.
