Slippery Slope

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ representative in Israel slammed Israel’s so-called voluntary return of Eritreans to their life-threatening home country under threat of detention, saying there was nothing voluntary about it. (Haaretz)

(Hebrew – Haaretz)

Prisoners testified that Eritreans asylum seekers are forced to sign “willing consent” to return to Eritrea or be deported to other countries.

(Hebrew)

Three youths are suspected of attacking an Eritrean asylum seeker in Tel-Aviv-Yafo, throwing stones at him, and threatening him with a knife. (JPost)

(Hebrew - Ynet)

The Foreign Ministry has criticized the Interior Minister, Eli Yishai (Shas), who contacted the Eritrean authorities in order to expedite the deportation of Eritrean refugees, without coordinating the contacts with the Foreign Ministry, and against regulations.

(Hebrew - Haaretz)

Interior Minister Eli Yishai said Israel should release petty criminals to free up jail space for 50,000 illegal “infiltrators.” He added that it is impossible to deport citizens of North Sudan and Eritrea. “At the moment, there are more than 50,000 people whom I cannot deport,” he said. “The security of Israeli citizens is really undermined as a result of these infiltrators and their behavior here, so I proposed clearing out the prisons.”

The Ministry of Interior has instructed local councils not to employ foreigners, including refugees and asylum seekers from Eritrea and Sudan, unless they have valid work and residency permits.  This instruction is in violation of the state’s announcement to the  High Court for Justice a year ago, following a petition filed by human rights organizations, that it would not enforce the prohibition against hiring unauthorized immigrants until a detention facility in the Negev starts operating, and that in any case it would notify the petitioners a month in advance of commencement of such enforcement.

According to reports from the “Physicians for Human Rights” organization and the Hotline for Migrant Workers, IDF soldiers denied entrance to forty asylum seekers from Eritrea, excepting two women. Most of the group has been in the desert since last week, without food, water, or shelter.

The State has claimed in Supreme Court hearings that it doesn’t turn away women, and also that since the beginning of March, it doesn’t perform “hot return” (also known as “coordinated immediate return procedure”), in which IDF soldiers and Border Police are authorized to return asylum seekers to Egypt.

Hebrew

The rabbi of the ultra-Orthodox town, Modi’in Ilith sent letters to three home owners: “no residence may be rent under any circumstances to foreign workers, and there is no permission to do so”. A cleaning contractor, residing in the town, who employs several Eritrean refugees and knows the owners in question told Ynet that the rabbi demanded they evict the lodgers by this weekend. According to him, the owners tend to obey the order since they feel threatened by various social sanctions, such as the removal of their children from their schools. (Hebrew)