Feeling unwanted and unwelcome, African migrants hit by new tax in Israel

Record ID: 898969

  • Title: Feeling unwanted and unwelcome, African migrants hit by new tax in Israel
  • Date: 11th July 2017
  • Summary: TEL AVIV, ISRAEL (JULY 10, 2017) (REUTERS) 29-YEAR OLD TEKLIT MICHAEL, WHO FLED ERITREA 9 YEARS AGO, COOKING IN KITCHEN AT 'PASTA BASTA' RESTAURANT TEKLIT COOKING SWEET POTATO MUSHROOMS IN POT TEKLIT MIXING TEKLIT (SOUNDBITE) (English) 29-YEAR OLD TEKLIT MICHAEL, WHO FLED ERITREA 9 YEARS AGO, SAYING: "This law is not help me to live in Israel or to survive as a human being but in opposite, break my spirit and break me as a person it doesn't give me any chance to survive as a human being because I am a survivor of dictatorship, not just me, every asylum seeker is a survivor of dictatorship and genocide, so we are here to ask asylum, we are not here to grab jobs of Israelis, we are not coming here to stay permanently like forever. One day we will left Israel to go back to our home, that's our dream, that's my personal dream." TEKLIT TEKLIT'S EYES (SOUNDBITE) (English) 29-YEAR OLD TEKLIT MICHAEL, WHO FLED ERITREA 9 YEARS AGO, SAYING: "The core point is the law is created to make asylum seeker leave the country voluntarily, they call it voluntarily, but involuntarily if you press someone to leave your country it's not voluntarily its involuntarily, you make his life very hard and hard from day to day so he leaves the country, it's not voluntarily. They want us to leave the country because of our skin, this is the only point." EXTERIOR OF PASTA BASTA RESTAURANT SIGN READING 'PASTA BASTA' IDO BREIER, MANAGER OF PASTA BASTA BRANCH IN TEL AVIV, SPEAKING TO TEKLIT (SOUNDBITE) (Hebrew) IDO BREIER, MANAGER OF PASTA BASTA BRANCH IN TEL AVIV, SAYING: "The state is asking me to be between a rock and a hard place and be the executer, the messenger, and essentially to be the one that steals from my employees - my loyal, good workers who only come to carry out there job the best that they can everyday - and take another 20 percent from their net". TEKLIT GETTING ON BICYCLE AFTER WORK TEKLIT RIDING HIS BICYCLE THROUGH THE STREETS TEL AVIV, ISRAEL (RECENT) (REUTERS) MIGRANTS IN STREETS (SOUNDBITE) (Hebrew) TUMISKI, 39 YEARS OLD, WHO FLED ERITREA 9 YEARS AGO, SAYING: "If they take 20 percent from their salary, how can they live here? What is this situation, what for, why make these problems for us? If they don't want us here, pick us all up and remove us. They don't want to see us because of our color." MIGRANTS IN STREETS TEL AVIV, ISRAEL (JULY 10, 2017) (REUTERS) ENTRANCE TO HOTLINE FOR REFUGEES AND MIGRANTS SIGN READING: 'HOTLINE FOR REFUGEES AND MIGRANTS' EMPLOYEES AT HOTLINE MEETING SIGAL ROZEN, PUBLIC POLICY COORDINATOR AT THE 'HOTLINE FOR REFUGEES AND MIGRANTS' (SOUNDBITE) (English) SIGAL ROZEN, PUBLIC POLICY COORDINATOR AT THE 'HOTLINE FOR REFUGEES AND MIGRANTS' SAYING: "This new deposit law is another decree in a long list of decrees that the Israeli government is using, implementing, in order to abuse the asylum seekers and make them leave the country on their own volition since the Israeli government doesn't manage to deport them by force." 'YULIA' CAFE AT TEL AVIV PORT CUSTOMERS AT CAFE (SOUNDBITE) (English) SHAI BERMAN, GENERAL MANAGER OF THE ISRAELI RESTAURANT ASSOCIATION, SAYING: "This is a huge problem for the industry because we don't have alternatives for this worker, we don't have nobody in the Israeli society want to work in cleaning and cleaning tables and dishes so they have… this workers, we depend on them." CAFE YULIA SCENES
  • Embargoed: 25th July 2017 12:57
  • Keywords: Israel African migrants tax deposit law
  • Location: TEL AVIV, ISRAEL
  • City: TEL AVIV, ISRAEL
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: Asylum/Immigration/Refugees,Government/Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA0016P9WJLZ
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text:Nine years ago, Teklit Michael fled Eritrea to avoid military conscription, survived a perilous journey across the Sinai peninsula and sought asylum in Israel.
    The 29-year-old Eritrean community organizer now works as a cook at a restaurant in south Tel Aviv - alone, without family and in legal limbo, awaiting a response to his asylum request.
    Since May, Michael's life has faced another challenge with new tax rules that force his employer to deduct 20 percent of his wages to put in a fund which he can access only if he leaves Israel.
    Michael, who left his homeland rather than serve in an army accused by human rights groups of treating conscripts brutally and forcing them to serve indefinitely, believes the aim of the new legislation, which applies only to African migrants and asylum seekers, is to make their lives miserable and inevitably leave the country.
    The Interior Ministry says the new rules are intended to benefit the migrants and asylum seekers, whom the government refers to as illegal infiltrators.
    Businesses that rely on migrant labor say costs will rise, and rights groups say Israel is not abiding by its international legal obligations. The government denies this but the Hotline for Refugees and Migrant Workers, an Israeli non-governmental organization, is challenging the law in Israel's High Court.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2017. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register