Anti-pullout protesters (dressed) outside Knesset building (Archive photo)
Photo: Gil Yochanan
Nude protester banned from Knesset
Knesset guards surprised to find naked anti-disengagement protester near parliament
Forget about wearing orange. How about just going in your birthday suit? On Saturday night, a security team was doing its usual patrol around the Knesset when it spotted a 60-something man sitting naked opposite the government building.
When asked what he was doing, the man replied that he was protesting the disengagement from Gush Katif.
The security guards called police to the scene and they arrested the man, a resident of Betar Ilit.
On Monday, the man was brought before Jerusalem Magistrate's Court judge Yitzhak Milanov, who agreed to a police request that the man be released but under restrictive conditions.
The man, nude or otherwise, may not get with 150 meters (about 500 feet) of the Knesset for a period of a month.
‘He decided to vent his outrage’
The man's lawyer, from the Public Defender's Office, said his Canadian-born client has a doctorate in philosophy, is religious and does not have a history of sex offenses.
His client's act was one of personal protest "against the expulsion of Jews from the Land of Israel in the area of Gush Katif," the attorney said
"We're talking about a religious man for whom the Torah and commandments are his guiding principles, and as a PhD. in Philosophy, he decided to take off his clothes, sit at the entrance of the Knesset, and vent his outrage," his lawyer said.
In addition to being slapped with a restraining order, the naked anti-pullout protestor had to post a NIS 5,000 (about USD 1,100) bail.
