CC. Photography by Gilad LibermanThe Refugee Rights Clinic at Tel Aviv University, Hotline for Migrant Workers, and Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), sent a letter to Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein this week, asking him to order the Ministry of the Interior to immediately implement the High Court of Justice’s decision to overturn the Anti-Infiltration Law. In the letter the organizations described how the Population and Immigration Authority (PIA) is preventing the release of imprisoned asylum seekers is in complete contravention of the Court’s decision.
On September 16 an expanded panel of nine Supreme Court Justices unanimously ruled that the Third Amendment to the Law for the Prevention of Infiltration is unconstitutional and must be overturned. Approximately 2,000 women, men and children are currently being held in harsh conditions without trial under the amendment, which was passed in January 2012. The Court ruled that due to the large number of people being held in custody, the releases were to begin immediately and be completed, at the latest, within 90 days of the ruling.
Attorneys Anat Ben Dor, Asaf Weizman and Oded Feller signed the letter to the Attorney General, in which they alleged that “the Population and Immigration Authority is clinging to a misguided reading of the decision and contending that the Court allowed it to delay the release of the prisoners for 90 days. To the best of our knowledge, despite a number of weeks having passed since the decision, the Authority has yet to release any of the prisoners of its own initiative. . . Moreover, the Authority continues to oppose deny motions for release filed with the Ministry’s administrative tribunal, and has even filed motions for reconsideration in respect of pending release orders for Eritrean and Sudanese citizens issued by the tribunal before the High Court decision.”
The organizations entreated the Attorney General to act urgently to ensure that the PIA begins a process of individual examinations and immediate release per the High Court’s explicit orders, and to guide the PIA to give priority to detainees with severe humanitarian implications, such as terror victims.
Additional Materials
The complete letter sent to the Attorney General (in Hebrew)
