T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights today announced its solidarity with the unprecedented tens of thousands of African asylum seekers participating in a three-day general strike in Israel.
These protesters, along with T’ruah, are demanding that the Israeli government stop widespread arrests of asylum seekers and end the policy of indefinite detention under the “Anti-Infiltration Law.” T’ruah and the protesters are calling for the Israeli government to implement a fair and transparent Refugee Status Determination procedure that allows for each individual to apply for asylum and provides protection and support for refugees.
“Just as Moses demanded over and over again in this week’s Torah portion to ‘Let My People Go,’ so too have African asylum seekers beseeched the Israeli government time and time again to grant them freedom from oppression and a life of safety in the Land of Israel,” said Joshua Bloom, T’ruah’s Director of Israel Programs. “After hearing individuals’ personal accounts of fleeing war, repressive regimes, and surviving torture camps, we hope no one’s heart will remain hardened.”
This week’s general strike is the latest in a string of successively growing peaceful demonstrations by African asylum seekers in Israel following the December 10, 2013 passage of the new Anti-Infiltration Law.
T’ruah has denounced the Israeli Government’s new “Anti-Infiltration” Law. The new law raises serious questions about compliance with a September 2013 Israeli High Court of Justice decision that determined that detaining asylum seekers without trial for a minimum of three years violates Israel’s Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty.
“Some have tried to justify the forced detention of asylum seekers, many of whom have suffered persecution and abuse in their home countries, by characterizing Africans as criminals, infiltrators, or threats to the Jewish character of the state,” said Rabbi Jill Jacobs, Executive Director of T’ruah. “But the true threat to the Jewish character of the state is the government’s abandonment of the Jewish imperative of care for the gerim–the landless sojourners who seek refuge among us.”
When the new law came into effect on December 12, 2013, hundreds of African detainees were transferred to a fenced-in “open facility” in relatively isolated area of Holot Halutza in the Negev. The law allows for the government to round up thousands of other African asylum seekers and hold them in internment camps. According to the law, these individuals will be required to report in three times a day and they will be locked in at night, to prevent work or flight, and there will be no limit on the length of residence.
There are approximately 55,000 asylum seekers in Israel. Most of these individuals are from Eritrea and Sudan which they fled because of repressive regimes, conflict, or forced conscription. Tens of thousands of these asylum seekers were kidnapped, tortured, and held for ransom by human traffickers in the Sinai desert before they secured their freedom and made it to Israel.