African refugees protest Israel’s ‘cruel’ deportation policy

Israeli news agencies reported that some 1,000 refugees and asylum seekers gathered outside the Supreme Court in Jerusalem to protest against Israel’s expulsion of refugees to other African countries.

The protest organisers say that asylum seekers who are deported to third countries such as Rwanda are then systematically send to Uganda where they have no legal status, and are at risk of being repatriated back to Eritrea.

More than 10,000 African asylum seekers, mainly Sudanese and Eritreans, have been held at the Holot detention facility in the Negev desert, with officials there allowed to keep them for a maximum of 12 months.

International law prohibits asylum seekers from being sent back to their homeland if it is a war zone or if it endangers their lives. Israel nonetheless has sought to strike deals with other African nations, so-called “third countries”, to take in some of them.

In a letter addressed to the Supreme Court, the organisers of the protest called the “third country” policy coercive, noting that “this policy is cruel, illegal and unacceptable. We should not be imprisoned or thrown to other countries in Africa that are not ours and don’t accept us.”

The letter also asked the Supreme Court to rule against the “cruel” policy, and requested that asylum be examined in a proper, just and transparent manner and that that they were not asking for citizenship or permanent residency.

“All we are asking is that our requests for asylum be heard, and that we will be able to stay here in peace until it is safe for us to return,” they added.

Reuven Abergel, one of the founders of the Israeli Black Panther movement which fought for the rights of Jews originally from the Middle East and North Africa, was also in attendance at the protest.

According to the Israeli Haaretz newspaper, Abergel addressed the protesters saying: “You came here exactly like those Jews after World War II, who asked for a haven, a roof over their heads, and a home for themselves.”

He told the crowd that the State of Israel should be “ashamed of the way in which it treats you” and that the government must release the refugees, and give them a place within Israeli society.

“We were also once refugees,” he concluded.