Sheffi Paz, a social rights activist, was greeted by an enthusiastic crowd of well-wishers shouting her name as she reported to Neve Tirtza Women’s Prison in Ramla, central Israel, on Thursday to begin a 45-day prison term handed down in September.
“I want to cry from emotion, not because of the prison, but because of the friends who came here to accompany me,” Paz said.
Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court Judge Miri Hart-Rich sentenced Paz, 72, on six charges, including “behavior that could violate public order and trespassing” and “conspiring to deface real estate.”
Paz and her supporters have maintained that the sentence was about nothing more than graffiti she had spray-painted against illegal immigrants.
They say it’s the latest example of “selective enforcement” by what they call a two-tier justice system, which caters to the left and prosecutes the right.
“They put me in jail for graffiti offenses because I’m on the wrong side,” Paz said.
Paz has for years brought attention to the plight of Israeli citizens in south Tel Aviv, who face rampant crime from illegal immigrants, mainly Eritreans, who have been dumped on the poor neighborhood.
Otzma Yehudit MK Yitzhak Wasserlauf, a minister in the current government, told the crowd that Paz was being “persecuted by a prosecutor’s office that practices a double standard.
“Left-wing protesters set fire to property and rampage on the roads, and the system turns a blind eye to them, while right-wing people are persecuted and given prison sentences for graffiti,” he said.
He referred to anti-government protesters who routinely start fires on streets they block, as well as deface public property on a massive scale. None of the so-called Kaplan Street protesters have been indicted in 2024.
Simcha Rothman of the Religious Zionism Party, head of the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee agreed that Paz was being persecuted by the court.
Ariel Zilber, a musician known for his right-wing views, also came to lend his support, calling her sentencing an “injustice.”
“All she wants is the best for her neighborhood,” he said.
Paz often employs graffiti in her campaign against illegal aliens, which she scrawls near courthouses, schools and other institutions.
The charges included graffiti Paz drew in 2019 on a European Union office to protest its alleged involvement in facilitating illegal African migration into the Jewish state. The graffiti read: “German money kills Jews.”
The judge noted in her sentence what she described as Paz’s abrasive and unrepentant attitude during the trial.
“I cannot ignore that defendant #1 declared to me during the hearing that she is neither sorry nor remorseful. In fact, she interrupted the hearing and the prosecutor’s arguments and demonstrated disregard [for the court],” the judge wrote.
Paz also declined to submit to a procedure that would have lightened her sentence, the judge said.
Paz and fellow activist Doron Avrahami, who received a suspended sentence, said during the trial: “We explained to the judges again and again that this is unacceptable to have two different systems of law enforcement. … And today we were informed that the legal oligarchy is once again joining ranks against the public who dared to demand reform.”
