Hundreds of African asylum seekers gathered outside the Israeli Supreme Court in Jerusalem on Thursday in order to protest the government’s deportation policy, which the court is currently deliberating.
African asylum seekers demonstrate outside the Supreme Court, Jerusalem, January 26, 2017. (Yael Ravid)
Hundreds of African asylum seekers, mostly Eritreans and Sudanese, demonstrated outside the Supreme Court in Jerusalem on Thursday in protest at the government’s proposed deportation policy.
The court is currently deliberating a petition against the policy, which would expand and formalize the government’s existing practice of deporting asylum seekers to “third countries” — such as Uganda or Rwanda — where they receive no protection, and from where they are often forced to return to their home countries.
African asylum seekers demonstrate outside the Supreme Court, Jerusalem, January 26, 2017. (Yael Ravid)
In a press release sent out before the demonstration, asylum seekers noted that the prime minister, along with many members of his government, had signaled their intent to deport Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers, with thousands having already been removed from Israel.
African asylum seekers demonstrate outside the Supreme Court, Jerusalem, January 26, 2017. (Yael Ravid)
“The State of Israel has abandoned us,” the statement read. “Our asylum requests are not examined and are rejected outright… The government has also chosen not to grant temporary refugee status to anyone from Eritrea.”
African asylum seekers demonstrate outside the Supreme Court, Jerusalem, January 26, 2017. (Yael Ravid)
The authors of the statement also said that they had lost contact with many of their friends who had already been deported. They further pointed out that arrivals of asylum seekers into Israel had stopped almost entirely, and that the last group to try and enter Israel through the Sinai had been shot dead by Egyptian security forces.
African asylum seekers demonstrate outside the Supreme Court, Jerusalem, January 26, 2017. (Yael Ravid)
Several busloads of demonstrators had come from the Holot detention facility in Israel’s south. The protesters — who counted the founder of the Israeli Black Panthers, Reuven Avergel, among them — held placards reading “Black Lives Matter,” “Obey the Refugee Convention” and “No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark,” quoting the Somali-British poet Warsan Shire.
African asylum seekers demonstrate outside the Supreme Court, Jerusalem, January 26, 2017. (Yael Ravid)
Israel has incarcerated over 10,000 Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers in Holot since it opened three years ago. Although they were initially detained indefinitely, a Supreme Court ruling in 2015 reduced the maximum detention period to a year.
Our team has been devastated by the horrific events of this latest war – the atrocities committed by Hamas in Israel and the massive retaliatory Israeli attacks on Gaza. Our hearts are with all the people and communities facing violence.
We are in an extraordinarily dangerous era in Israel-Palestine. The bloodshed unleashed by these events has reached extreme levels of brutality and threatens to engulf the entire region. Hamas’ murderous assault in southern Israel has devastated and shocked the country to its core. Israel’s retaliatory bombing of Gaza is wreaking destruction on the already besieged strip and killing a ballooning number of civilians. Emboldened settlers in the West Bank, backed by the army, are seizing the opportunity to escalate their attacks on Palestinians.
This escalation has a very clear context, one that +972 has spent the past 13 years covering: Israeli society’s growing racism and militarism, the entrenched occupation, and an increasingly normalized siege on Gaza.
We are well positioned to cover this perilous moment – but we need your help to do it. This terrible period will challenge the humanity of all of those working for a better future in this land. Palestinians and Israelis are already organizing and strategizing to put up the fight of their lives.
Can we count on your support? +972 Magazine is the leading media voice of this movement, a desperately needed platform where Palestinian and Israeli journalists and activists can report on and analyze what is happening, guided by humanism, equality, and justice. Join us.