MIDEAST-ISRAEL/MIGRANTS Israeli lawmakers vote to keep African migrants in detention without trial

Record ID: 348821

  • Title: MIDEAST-ISRAEL/MIGRANTS Israeli lawmakers vote to keep African migrants in detention without trial
  • Date: 8th December 2014
  • Summary: HOLOT, ISRAEL (FILE) (REUTERS) HOLOT DETENTION CENTRE AS SEEN FROM A DISTANCE VARIOUS OF EXTERIOR OF CENTRE AFRICAN MIGRANT WALKING ACROSS DETENTION CENTRE COURTYARD VARIOUS OF MEN SITTING AT BUS STOP
  • Embargoed: 23rd December 2014 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA2J7FIWT1A1YE6EON7WNXUZQR3
  • Story Text: NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS MATERIAL WHICH WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
    Israeli lawmakers on Monday (December 8) voted 47 to 23 to pass a government-backed amendment to keep open a detention centre for African migrants despite a high court order to shut it by December 22.
    The court found in September that holding some 2,000 migrants under a law passed in 2013 that permitted them to be held without trial, violated rights to freedom and dignity.
    The amended bill passed on Monday set a 20-month limit to detentions at the Holot facility.
    The head of Israel's parliament Internal Affairs and Environment committee, lawmaker Miri Regev, said she was committed to the residents of southern Tel Aviv, who have been protesting over the presence of African migrants in their midst.
    "For me it was important to look into the eyes of south Tel Aviv residents - and not to close Holot (detention centre). If I hadn't approved this bill today, Holot would have been shut on December 22 and 3,000 migrants from Holot were arriving to south Tel Aviv," said Regev.
    Moments before the vote left-wing lawmakers protested the measure as undemocratic saying it failed to answer the court's demands. Justices have overruled legislation detaining migrants twice since 2013.
    Opposition member and lawmaker Dov Khenin said the detention centre did not solve anything.
    "The government just continues with slogans policy. You know, this detention centre in Holot is not really solving anything, because even if it will be continued and 3,000 asylum seekers will be held there for years there will be still many more all around south Tel Aviv," said Khenin.
    Elisheva Milikovsky of Physicians for Human Rights denounced the bill.
    "The Knesset today in her last day actually is passing again a law that was cancelled twice by the supreme court, this law unfortunately is also spending a lot of money and also is not helping not the population of the asylum seekers and not the population of south Tel Aviv," said Milikovsky.
    Eritrea asylum seeker, Munogeta Tamuzgi, who said he entered Israel seven years ago and acts as an activist for Eritrean's rights in Israel called on the government to pass a "humanitarian" bill.
    "I would like to say for the Israeli government that to have a humanitarian (law) and to make a good decision for the refugees because we are not criminals, we are not dangerous for the Israeli people," he said.
    Tamuzgi added that the Knesset members should treat each case separately.
    "They should have to give us a status, to check each and every (one) due to the International-law," Tamuzgi added.
    More than 40,000 Eritreans and Sudanese are in Israel, human rights groups say based on Israeli population figures. Many had entered Israel illegally across the border with Egypt.
    Israeli leaders have denounced the migrants as harmful to society and tried to stop them entering by fortifying a fence along the Egyptian border in 2012.
    Human rights groups have charged that by jailing migrants, Israel was coercing people entitled to refugee protection under international law to risk their lives through repatriation.
    Many Eritrean migrants say they have fled political repression, while many Sudanese say they have escaped civil strife, mostly in the Darfur region.
    Israel grants automatic citizenship to Jews, while denying refugee or residency status to many others. Some social activists complain this policy is discriminatory while others cite a shortage of legislation governing immigration.
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