A new report
published by Hotline for Refugees and Migrants and ASSAF – aid
organization for refugees and asylum seekers in Israel, exposes
consequential flaws in the “voluntary” return procedure, under which
9,026 African asylum seekers have left Israel over the past two years.
The report includes testimonies of asylum-seekers who were detained and
tortured in Sudan, and are still subject to persecution by the regime.
Other testimonies prove that the third countries to which asylum seekers
are being sent, Uganda and Rwanda, do not offer any protection, legal
status or guarantees to the asylum-seekers’ safety. Because they are
denied any rights and all their identifying documents are confiscated
upon arrival in Uganda and Rwanda, the asylum-seekers are forced to
continue their journey, exposed to the dangers of government detention,
and demands for ransom and abuse by traffickers.
published by Hotline for Refugees and Migrants and ASSAF – aid
organization for refugees and asylum seekers in Israel, exposes
consequential flaws in the “voluntary” return procedure, under which
9,026 African asylum seekers have left Israel over the past two years.
The report includes testimonies of asylum-seekers who were detained and
tortured in Sudan, and are still subject to persecution by the regime.
Other testimonies prove that the third countries to which asylum seekers
are being sent, Uganda and Rwanda, do not offer any protection, legal
status or guarantees to the asylum-seekers’ safety. Because they are
denied any rights and all their identifying documents are confiscated
upon arrival in Uganda and Rwanda, the asylum-seekers are forced to
continue their journey, exposed to the dangers of government detention,
and demands for ransom and abuse by traffickers.
On March 31, the Israel Ministry of interior announced a new policy,
under which Eritrean and Sudanese asylum-seekers will be deported to two
African countries; those who refuse will be indefinitely detained in
Saharonim prison. On September 2013, the Israeli High Court of Justice
accepted the NGOs petition and struck down the 3rd amendment to the
Anti-Infiltration Law, which allowed the government to detain
asylum-seekers without trial for three years in Saharonim prison. On
September 2014, the High Court accepted a second petition and struck
down the 4th amendment to the Anti-Infiltration Law, which allowed the
State to indefinitely detain asylum-seekers in the Holot facility. As a
response, on December 2014 the Knesset passed a new amendment, which
limited the detention period in Holot to 20 months.
