Three human rights organizations on Sunday published a joint report rejecting Israeli arguments against accepting asylum seekers and criticizing the government for using force to deter the African refugees from entering Israel. The report was published just as Interior Minister Eli Yishai wrote a letter calling on the justice ministry to allow for the resumption of arrests of African migrants in Israel.
Human Rights Watch, the Hotline for Migrant Workers, and Physicians for Human Rights listed Israeli excuses for denying the migrants entry. “Israeli authorities contend that asylum seekers to whom it denies entry can request asylum from Egyptian authorities, that Israel has the right to seal its borders, and that its obligations toward asylum seekers do not extend to those who are prevented from entering its territory.”
Immigration authorities arrest a mother and her daughter, Tel Aviv, October 28, 2012 (Photo: Activestills)
“Building a border fence does not give Israel a right to push back asylum seekers,” said Gerry Simpson a senior refugee researcher and advocate at Human Rights Watch. “International law is crystal clear: no summary rejection of asylum seekers at the frontier and no forcible return unless and until it is established that their refugee claims are not valid.” “Not only are there credible reports that Israeli soldiers are blocking asylum seekers at the border, but also that they are using violence to do so,” Simpson said. “Israeli authorities should immediately instruct its border patrols to stop abusing people who try to enter Israel.”
The report citing specific examples of IDF soldiers allegedly denying food and water to migrants, beating them with fists and guns, and pushing them across the Israel-Egypt border with long metal poles. The NGOs stated that the migrants face extreme violence if denied entry into Israel, including torture and rape by Sinai traffickers.
Interior Minister Eli Yishai on Sunday called on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Justice Minister Yaacov Neeman to instruct the Justice Ministry to carry out a government decision to begin populating the Negev detention facilities with African migrants, despite recent court decisions that have temporarily halted the plan and called its legality into question. In a letter sent on Sunday, Yishai said that court decisions against the plan “cancel and contradict decisions made by the government to place the Sudanese infiltrators in the facilities.” The Shas party minister has been the most racist and outspoken government voice against the “infiltrator problem.”
Last week, the state attorney requested that the court should throw out an earlier order temporarily freezing any mass arrests of migrants, and dismiss a petition seeking a permanent freeze, in a response to a petition on Thursday before the Jerusalem District Court. The state said that since no decision on the issue of mass deportations and arrests has been made, there is no decision for the court to freeze, and the petitioners jumped the gun in filing their petition to stop the arrests. A group of human rights organizations filed a petition on October 3rd seeking a freeze to mass arrests of migrants, which Yishai had vowed to carry out beginning on October 15th. On October 11, the Jerusalem District Court issued an order freezing any impending mass arrests of migrants until a final hearing on October 30.
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