Mounted Police Should Not be Used as Crowd Control for Demonstrations
- ACRI
- Aug 18
- 2 min read
On August 18, 2025 ACRI petitioned the Supreme Court demanding that the police be prohibited from using mounted police to disperse demonstrations—or, at the very least, that law enforcement amend its procedures regarding the use of mounted police in order to ensure the safety of protesters, including prohibiting the use of mounted police together with other means of crowd dispersal, conditioning the use of mounted police on the existence of an escape route for protesters, and prohibiting using the reins for whipping protesters.
The petition describes how police policies regarding the use of mounted police during demonstrations have increasingly allowed mounted law enforcement to behave dangerously and recklessly. Moreover, there have been numerous cases in which mounted police have been used against policy, and have been used violently and indiscriminately against protesters: protesters have been knocked down and trampled by horses, been whipped by mounted police and beaten with batons, and in some cases have suffered significant injuries.
The use of horses and mounted police to disperse demonstrations exceeds the reasonable use of force and disproportionately violates the rights of demonstrators to bodily integrity, personal security, human dignity, and freedom of expression and protest. It also creates a chilling effect that deters would-be protesters and the public from exercising their freedom of protest and political expression, and harms fundamental principles of democracy.
The petition also requests that the court consolidate the cases brought by ACRI, which focuses on the human rights violations perpetrated by the use of mounted police, with the petitioned filed by the organization Let the Animals Live, which focuses on the harm to the horses as a result of their use in dispersing demonstrations.
HCJ 44742-08-25 The Association for Civil Rights in Israel v. Israel Police
Attorney: Nitzan Ilani
The petition, August 18, 2025 (Heb)
For links to articles written in Hebrew about this issue, see here.
The petition was written with the assistance of Attorney Eden Gilad and legal interns Yaser Abu Areesha and Yotam Rotfeld, as well as with the assistance of Sivan Tahel and Sassi Ratson
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