Protests erupt in Israel against arrest of seminary student

Thousands of ultra-Orthodox demonstrators rallied Wednesday night in Israel's Jerusalem and other cities across the country, protesting the arrest of a yeshiva student who refused to report to the Israeli army for conscription processing. The protest erupted a week after the Knesset (parliament) approved a controversial new law to conscript ultra-Orthodox Jews into the military. In central Jerusalem, dozens protesters hurled stones at buses and set fire to trash bins, eye witnesses told Xinhua, adding that the police used water canon to disperse them. Some 500 ultra-Orthodox protesters gathered under the Cord Bridge near the entrance to Jerusalem, a spokesperson for the police told Xinhua. Israeli law obliges all Israeli Jewish citizens to enlist into the military at the age of 18. However, ultra-Orthodox were traditionally exempted from service in order to allow them to pursue religious studies in yeshivas (seminaries). The new law cancels those exemptions and put criminal sanctions, including incarceration, on draft dodgers.