Over three-and-a-half years after Ethiopian-Israeli Yosef Salamsa died under mysterious circumstances following physical abuse at the hands of police, the attorney-general rejected his family’s fifth appeal to indict the two officers responsible. On the night of March 1, 2014, without warning, police beat and tased Salamsa, 22, arrested him, and left him shackled on the ground outside the Zichron Ya’acov police station, south of Haifa. According to a police report, a call was received about two suspects, one armed with a knife, attempting to break into a building in Binyamina. Salamsa, who had been recently discharged from the IDF, was tased by one of the responding officers a short time later.Salamsa was never charged with a crime, and in the ensuing weeks his family said he developed an acute form of post-traumatic stress, coupled with clinical depression stemming from the assault.Moreover, the family claimed the officers who arrested him subsequently harassed and threatened him and his family. Solomon Gavriya in Har Adar – who saved multiple lives by helping neutralize an Arab terrorist who killed two others – Maharat said she wondered what it will take for Ethiopians to be afforded respect and equal rights in Israel.“Despite serving in the IDF, police force and government and contributing to society, we still feel like our lives don’t matter in this country, because of the color of our skin,” she said.

Source: Ethiopian News October 02, 2017 15:36 UTC