Eritrean refugees imprisoned in Israel are being coerced into signing “voluntary” departure forms to return to Eritrea – where the UN says their lives would be in danger – or go to another country, according to the UN refugee agency here and the Hotline for Migrant Workers.

According to “Haaretz”, local UN officials say the Eritreans are denied their right to seek asylum. They are being told they can either go back home or stay locked up in Israel for at least three years.  A group of Eritrean nationals is expected to be flown soon either to Eritrea or to another country willing to receive them, say officials who visited the prison near Kibbutz Mishmarot where they are being held.

Eritrean refugees living in Israel take part in a protest outside the Eritrean embassy in the city of Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv, February 1. 2013. The protesters were calling for the ousting of the dictatorship regime in Eritrea, and the release of all political prisoners (Photo: Activestills)

If the reports are true, this will be the first time Eritreans are returned at Israel’s initiative to their country, which the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has classified as a totalitarian state that severely violates human rights. The Eritrean government imprisons and tortures dissenters, drafts men into the army for decades, and has shut down human rights and non-governmental organizations.

MK Dov Khenin (Hadash) sent the head of the Population and Immigration Authority an urgent request to stop the deportation back to Eritrea and to stop signing the refugees on the return documents. “Returning asylum seekers to Eritrea is a clear and blatant violation of the ‘no return’ principle in the Refugee Rights Convention,” he wrote.

Attorney Reut Michaeli of the Hotline for Migrant Workers said “the fact that Israel prevents refugees from applying for asylum shows how obtuse we’ve become. Sending people in this situation back to their country means deportation – deportation to where their lives are in danger. There’s nothing voluntary about that.”

Related:
              An open letter from Eritrean refugees in Israeli prison camps