The Israeli
high court on Monday, 22 September 2014 ordered for the closure of a detention
facility for African migrants. The court further directed that close to 2,000
inmates currently held at the facility — known as Holot Residency Centre — be
released within the next 90 days.
The court ruling
was in response to an appeal by human rights groups against the decision by
Israel’s parliament (Knesset) to enact a law that authorised the indefinite
incarceration of migrants — mostly from the Sudan and Eritrea.
The law, which was passed in December 2013, allowed for the
detention of illegal African immigrants for up to one year without trial.
Proponents of the law had cited the migrants as illegal job seekers whereas it
opponents had defended the migrants as asylum seekers who were escaping
persecution and hardships in their countries.
The
Knesset’s decision sparked widespread protests by tens of thousands of African
refugees who wanted the former to rescind the decision. Efforts by close to
10,000 African refugees to seek audience with the speaker of Knesset were unsuccessful
after they were barred from accessing parliament buildings.
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| Protests by these immigrants fell on deaf ears as the Knesset refused to rescind its decision (Image cerdit: www.forward.com) |
Seven judges
out of the nine-judge bench that presided over the case agreed that
incarceration of the migrants would be a gross violation of their rights to
freedom in addition to infringing on their right to dignity.
Justice Uzi
Vogelman, one of the seven judges who argued for the closure of the detention
centre, stated that under the circumstances, there was no option other than to
order for the repeal of the law. “The measure is disproportionate and
unconstitutional. There is almost no right that isn’t violated as a result of
incarceration,” Justice Vogelman stated.
Reacting to
the ruling, Bill Frelick, the Refugee Programs Director at Human Rights Watch
urged the Israeli government to comply with the order. “The Israeli government
should treat the people it locks up with basic dignity,” Frelick added.
However,
Gideon Sa’ar, Israel’s Interior Minister, criticised the ruling adding that it
would be hard to accept the ruling. “This is a mistake that means we cannot
achieve a Jewish democratic state because our borders will be infiltrated by
the illegal immigrants,” Sa’ar claimed.
Construction on the Holot Residency Centre began
in 2012 in the Negev desert and was meant to house close to 8,000 migrants. The
facility accommodated both male and female migrants including children and
initially detained them for up to three years before deportation to their countries
of origin. However, refugees from Sudan who could not be deported would be
detained indefinitely.
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| Refugee camp or detention centre? The Holot Residency Centre (Image courtesy of www.newsdaily.com) |
In September
2014, a Human Rights Watch report criticised Israeli authorities for
using an unlawful coercion policy to force close to 7,000 African asylum
seekers to return home — of this number, 6,400 were Sudanese whereas 367 were
Eritreans. These actions, according to the report, put the returning refugees at
the risk of torture and imprisonment in their home of countries.
According to
the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), Eritreans constitute
the largest number of asylum seekers in Israel. Its statistics indicate that there were over 37,000
Eritrean asylum seekers in the country as at 2012; up from over 31,000 recorded
in 2011. During the same period (2012), there were over 10,000 Sudanese asylum
seekers up from 9,000 in 2012.
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