After more than a month of continuous protests and actions, the African asylum seeker community in Israel declared Wednesday an “International day of solidarity with the African asylum seeker community in Israel.”
Demonstrators in Tel-Aviv on Wednesday, January 22, 2014 (Photo: Activestills)
Some 5,000 demonstrators marching from south Tel Aviv to the U.S. Embassy, where they stood silently with tape covering their mouths in protest against the racist government’s refusal to recognize their claims. Protests also took place outside the embassies of France, Italy, Britain, Angola and Sweden. In solidarity with their cause, Israeli human rights activists and members of the Sudanese and Eritrean communities protested outside 13 Israeli embassies around the world. The protest outside the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv is expected to continue with migrants picketing outside daily.
In a statement ahead of Wednesday’s protest, the migrants wrote: “We will not be silent in the face of the humiliation of the African refugee community in Israel. We have no choice left but to turn to the international community and to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva.”
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