Tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered Saturday evening in Israel, for the tenth consecutive week, to protest against the reform of the judicial system that the government is trying to impose.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing and far-right coalition is preparing to speed up the legislative process from Sunday, the first day of the week in Israel, to push through this reform, considered undemocratic by its detractors.
As on previous Saturdays, the main rally took place in central Tel Aviv where protesters, numbering more than 100,000 according to media reports, waved a wave of blue and white Israeli flags.
"I'm protesting because the steps the new government wants to take pose a real and immediate threat to Israeli democracy," Ran Shahor, a tech entrepreneur, told AFP.
Other demonstrations took place in the main cities of the country.
The gatherings dispersed without major incident. Three protesters who were blocking traffic on the Tel Aviv ring road were arrested, police said.
According to Israeli media estimates, the rallies this Saturday broke attendance records in the cities of Haifa (north) and Beer Sheva (south), with 50,000 and 10,000 people respectively, significant figures reported to the Israeli population, a little over nine million inhabitants.
The Israeli police do not provide estimates of the number of protesters.
Knesset (Parliament) Law Committee Chairman Simcha Rothman has scheduled hearings on the judicial reform bill every day from Sunday to Wednesday.
He thus seems to reject calls to slow down or interrupt the examination of the texts in the Knesset to allow compromise negotiations and to stick strictly to the timetable he had announced with the Minister of Justice Yariv Levin.
This timetable calls for the adoption of the main elements of the reform before the end of the Knesset's winter session on April 2.
This reform would considerably limit the Supreme Court's ability to invalidate laws and would effectively give the majority political coalition the power to appoint judges.
On Thursday evening, Israeli President Isaac Herzog called for a halt to the legislative process on the judicial reform bill, calling it a "threat to the foundations of democracy".
11/03/2023 23:01:08 Tel Aviv (AFP) © 2023 AFP
