Violence From Ultra-orthodox Jews May Halt Gay March in Jerusalem

Nightly riots by ultra-Orthodox Jews in protest at a gay pride march scheduled to take place in Jerusalem later this week have led police to warn that the risk of violence is now too great to allow it to go ahead.

For several days ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem and elsewhere have attacked police officers, burned rubbish bins and blocked off roads in an attempt to halt the parade. Six policemen have been injured and 60 rioters arrested in the past week.

Yesterday, police warned that the risk of violence was too great but stopped short of calling for a ban. "We understand that the potential danger to life and bloodshed is greater than that to free speech," said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.

The attorney general, Menachem Mazuz, will take the final decision later this week, and newspaper reports have suggested he wants the march to go ahead. The march was cancelled in the summer, because of the war in Lebanon, and again in September, because police said they were overstretched by a heightened security alert during the Jewish holidays. The supreme court has ruled that the march should take place on Friday.

Opposition to the parade in conservative Jerusalem has brought an unlikely alliance between ultra-Orthodox Jews and Muslim and Christian religious leaders.

The parade has taken place four times in the past, but last year three people were stabbed by an ultra-Orthodox man during the march. Organisers insist that the march should go ahead this year as a sign of the state's commitment to democracy, and are angry that the police appear to be giving in to the violence of the past week and the growing power of the ultra-Orthodox community.

"We will march on Friday," said Elena Canetti of the Jerusalem Open House, the gay rights group behind the parade. "We hope it will be a happy event, but even if it's not, it's going to happen."

If a decision is made to cancel the parade, gay rights groups are likely to petition the supreme court to ensure it goes ahead.

The row is the latest provoked by the ultra-Orthodox community who have complained in the past about shops, restaurants and cinemas staying open on the Sabbath and drivers using some roads on the Sabbath near their communities.

Last night gangs of ultra-Orthodox Jews threw stones at buses in the town of Bet Shemesh because there was no separation between men and women on board. One driver was injured and another fired shots into the air to clear away the rioters. Ultra-Orthodox residents in the area want buses where men sit in the front and women at the back and the radio does not play.

There were riots at the weekend in Bnei Brak, an ultra-Orthodox town near the much more liberal city of Tel Aviv. Rioters blocked one of the country's main roads with burning tyres.