In April 2009, Pollak was indicted on a charge of illegal assembly for his participation in the Critical Mass ride. A conviction in this case will activate an older three-month suspended sentence, imposed on Pollak in a previous trial for protesting the construction of Israel's wall in the West Bank.
Tel Aviv Magistrates Court Judge Yitzhak Yitzhak could add an additional prison term in addition to the suspended sentence.
On Jan. 31, 2008, some 30 protesters participated in the Critical Mass bicycle ride through the streets of Tel Aviv in protest at the Gaza siege. During the protest, Pollak was arrested by plainclothes police, who recognized him from previous protests and because, as claimed in court, they assumed he was the organizer and figurehead of the event.
The protest was allowed to continue undisturbed after Pollak's arrest and ended with no further incidents or detentions, the statement added.
The arrest and consequent indictment appears to be the result of police vindictiveness, rather than of Pollak's behavior at the time of the event. Pollak was but one in a group of protesters who behaved exactly like him, yet he was the one singled out, the statement pointed out.
Moreover, environmental Critical Mass events take place in Tel Aviv regularly, but have never been met with such a response. Other protests, which have caused far more severe obstruction of traffic — the motorcade protest of thousands of motorcycles, for example — did not result in arrests, and did not lead to the filing of criminal charges and imprisonment.
Pollak's lawyer Gaby Lasky said: "The police not only singled out Pollak from a crowd of people who all did exactly as he did, but also singled out the entire protest for no reason other than its political alignment. Similar events regularly take place in Tel Aviv without police intervention, let alone arrests and indictments.”
