Israel’s High Court of Justice ordered government to close the Holot detention facility for African asylum-seekers within 90 days and it voided an amendment to Israel’s Anti-Infiltration Law, passed by the Knesset nine months ago. That amendment allowed Israel to incarcerate without trial anyone who enters the country illegally.
High Court Rules Israel’s Detention Of African Asylum Seekers Is Illegal And Must Stop
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Israel’s High Court of Justice ordered government to close the Holot detention facility for African asylum-seekers within 90 days, Ha’aretz reported, and it voided an amendment to Israel’s Anti-Infiltration Law, passed by the Knesset nine months ago. That amendment allowed Israel to incarcerate without trial anyone who enters the country illegally.
Approximately 2,000 African asylum-seekers, almost all from Eritrea and Sudan, are now detained at Holot without trial.
Israel habitually refuses to grant African asylum-seekers refugee status even when they clearly qualify for it and has taken often draconian steps to harass African asylum-seekers to try to force them to flee the country. At the same time, Israeli politicians – especially those from the right-wing and from haredi and Zionist Orthodox political parties – have used racist language to justify the government’s mistreatment the of African asylum-seekers.
Israel’s mistreatment of African asylum-seekers has drawn condemnation from international refugee authorities, experts in international law, and the UN along with drawing the ire of some Jewish activists in Israel – including several elderly Holocaust survivors.
But the worldwide Jewish community has been almost completely silent on the matter. When rare statements have been made by these communities and organizations, they have almost always been made in complete support of the government’s policies.
The nine-judge panel ruled 7-2 against that mistreatment today.