Fighting discrimination: Criminal records of disorderly conduct to be erased for Ethiopian Israelis

Charges of disorderly conduct will be erased from the records of Ethiopian Israelis if they do not have additional criminal charges against them and if they were not given a custodial sentence for the charge, the Knesset voted into law Wednesday.

The law will apply for charges preceding October 31, 2020, and follows the findings of the Palmor committee and a comptroller report, which show over-policing of Ethiopians for offenses of disorderly conduct and similar offenses.

Ethiopians have been experiencing institutional and individual discrimination for years, including from Israel Police, the Palmor committee found.  

Offenses will be erased even in closed cases and for cases in which the suspect was convicted.

"This law is the correction of a historic wrong," said Religious Zionist Party MK Moshe Solomon "We are making a correction that will bring the [Ethiopian] community to the front and bring out its strength."

This law is important "so that all citizens grow up here in a place of equal opportunity for all," he said.

"For years, Ethiopian Israelis have been subject to police brutality and over-policing, leaving many young people unjustly with a police record that denies them serving in the Israel Defense Forces and the social and economic integration that comes along with that service," said MK Tsega Melaku, and social activists Rina Ayalin-Gorelik, and Yosef Abramowitz on the topic in March.

"Police unfairly [handle] Ethiopian Israeli demonstrators with crushing brutality, as though they were enemies of the state," they added, touching on the policing of the protests against police violence towards the Ethiopian community in 2015 and the protests following the police shooting of Solomon Tekah in 2019.

Indictments against Ethiopians more than their population proportion

The Palmor report, released in July 2016, found that in 2015 the percentage of indictments issued against Ethiopians was more than twice their proportion in the population; and that for indictments against minors, the proportion of indictments against Ethiopians was four times as great as their proportion in the population.

Ethiopian minors made up 18.5% of those incarcerated in the Ofek prison, which is nearly ten times their proportion in the population, the report added. 

This is not the first time the Knesset has voted for a mass expungement. In 2010, the indictments of some 400 and the arrest records of 6,000 protesters against the Gaza disengagement were erased, while the records of those who had prior criminal offenses or who were indicted for severe violence were not erased. 

Larry Derfner contributed to this report.