Salaam,
Check this out..
Woman beaten on J'lem bus for refusing to move to rear seat
By Daphna Berman
A woman who reported a vicious attack by
an ad-hoc "modesty patrol" on a Jerusalem bus last month is
now lining up support for her case and may be included in a
petition to the High Court of Justice
over the legality of sex-segregated buses.
Miriam Shear says she was traveling to
pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City early on
November 24 when a group of
ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) men attacked her for refusing to move to
the back of the Egged No. 2 bus. She is now in touch with
several legal advocacy and women's organizations, and at the same
time, waiting for the police to apprehend her attackers.
In her first interview since the incident, Shear says that on the
bus three weeks ago, she was slapped,
kicked, punched and pushed by a group of men who demanded that she
sit in the back of the bus with the other women. The bus
driver, in response to a media inquiry, denied that violence was
used against her, but Shear's account
has been substantiated by an unrelated eyewitness on the bus who
confirmed that she sustained an unprovoked "severe
beating."
Shear, an American-Israeli woman
who currently lives in Canada, says that on a recent five-week
vacation to Israel, she rode the bus daily to the Old City to pray
at sunrise. Though not defined by Egged
as a sex-segregated "mehadrin" bus, women usually sit in the back,
while men sit in the front, as a matter of custom.
"Every two or three days, someone would
tell me to sit in the back, sometimes politely and sometimes not,"
she recalled this week in a telephone interview. "I was always
polite and said 'No. This is not a synagogue. I am not going to sit
in the back.'"
But Shear, a 50-year-old religious
woman, says that on the morning of the 24th, a man got onto the bus and demanded her seat - even
though there were a number of other seats available in the front of
the bus.
"I said, I'm not moving and he said,
'I'm not asking you, I'm telling you.' Then he
spat in my face and at that point, I was in high
adrenaline mode and called him a
son-of-a-bitch, which I am not proud of. Then I spat back.
At that point, he pushed me down and
people on the bus were screaming that I was crazy.
Four men surrounded me and slapped my
face, punched me in the chest, pulled at my clothes, beat me,
kicked me. My snood [hair covering] came off. I was fighting
back and kicked one of the men in his privates. I will never forget
the look on his face."
Shear says that when she bent down in the aisle to retrieve her
hair covering, "one of the men kicked
me in the face. Thank God he missed my eye. I got up and punched
him. I said, 'I want my hair covering back' but he wouldn't give it
to me, so I took his black hat and threw it in the
aisle."
'Stupid American'
Throughout the encounter, Shear says the bus driver "did nothing." The other passengers, she
says, blamed her for not moving to the back of the bus and called
her a "stupid American with no sechel [common sense.] People
blamed me for not knowing my place and not going to the back of the
bus where I belong."
According to Yehoshua Meyer, the
eyewitness to the incident, Shear's account is entirely accurate.
"I saw everything," he said. "Someone got on the bus and demanded
that she go to the back, but she didn't agree. She was badly beaten
and her whole body sustained hits and kicks. She tried to fight
back and no one would help her. I tried to help, but someone was
stopping me from getting up. My phone's battery was dead, so I
couldn't call the police. I yelled for the bus driver to stop. He
stopped once, but he didn't do anything. When we finally got to the
Kotel [Western Wall], she was beaten badly and I helped her go to
the police."
Shear says that when she first started riding the No. 2 line, she
did not even know that it was sometimes sex-segregated. She also
says that sitting in the front is simply more comfortable.
"I'm a 50-year-old woman and I don't like
to sit in the back. I'm dressed appropriately and I was on a public
bus."
"It is very dangerous for a group of people to take control over a
public entity and enforce their will without going through due
process," she said. "Even if they [Haredim who want a segregated
bus] are a majority - and I don't think they are - they have
options available. They can petition Egged or hire their own
private line. But as long as it's a public bus, I don't care if
there are 500 people telling me where to sit. I can sit wherever I
want and so can anyone else."
Meyer says that throughout the incident, the other passengers blamed Shear for not sitting in
the back. "They'll probably claim that she attacked them first, but
that's totally untrue. She was abused terribly, and I've never seen
anything like it."
Word of Shear's story traveled quickly after she forwarded an
e-mail detailing her experience. She has been contacted by a number
of groups, including Shatil, the New Israel Fund's Empowerment and
Training Center for Social Change; Kolech, a religious women's
forum; the Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC), the legal
advocacy arm of the local Reform movement; and the Jewish Orthodox
Feminist Alliance (JOFA).
In the coming month, IRAC will be submitting a petition to the High
Court of Justice against the Transportation Ministry over the issue
of segregated Egged buses. IRAC attorney Orly Erez-Likhovski is in
touch with Shear and is considering including her in the
petition.
Although the No. 2 Jerusalem bus where the incident occurred is not
actually defined as a mehadrin line, Erez-Likhovski says that
Shear's story is further proof that the issue requires legal
clarification. About 30 Egged buses are designated as mehadrin,
mostly on inter-city lines, but they are not marked to indicate
this. "There's no way to identify a mehadrin bus, which in itself
is a problem," she said.
"Theoretically, a person can sit wherever they want, even on a
mehadrin line, but we're seeing that people are enforcing [the
gender segregation] even on non-mehadrin lines and that's the part
of the danger," she said.
On a mehadrin bus, women enter and exit
through the rear door, and the seats from the rear door back are
generally considered the "women's section." A child is usually sent
forward to pay the driver.
The official responses
In a response from Egged, the bus driver denied that Shear was
physically attacked in any way.
"In a thorough inquiry that we conducted, we found that the bus
driver does not confirm that any violence was used against the
complainant," Egged spokesman Ron Ratner wrote.
"According to the driver, once he saw that there was a crowd
gathering around her, he stopped the bus and went to check what was
going on. He clarified to the passengers that the bus was not a
mehadrin line and that all passengers on the line are permitted to
sit wherever they want on the bus. After making sure that the
passengers returned to their seats, he continued driving."
The Egged response also noted that their drivers "are not able and
are not authorized to supervise the behavior of the passengers in
all situations."
Ministry of Transportation spokesperson Avner Ovadia said in
response that the mehadrin lines are "the result of agreements
reached between Egged and Haredi bodies" and are therefore
unconnected to the ministry.
A spokesperson for the Jerusalem police said the case is still
under investigation.
So i wonder what will people make of this.
I just wish to point out that this article will never see the
NORMAL media light due to the some "protection" of Israel
image.
My question to you is,if this coutnry was a muslim coutnry,you
would be up in arms,but since it is Israel,the evangelical or
chrsiitan here,,would you condone such behaviour by your chosen
people?