{"id":4476,"date":"2012-05-25T17:31:08","date_gmt":"2012-05-25T15:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/?p=4476"},"modified":"2012-06-27T13:40:04","modified_gmt":"2012-06-27T11:40:04","slug":"refugees-in-tel-aviv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/2012\/05\/25\/refugees-in-tel-aviv\/","title":{"rendered":"About Going Back to Eritrea… Refugees in Tel Aviv"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was Eritrean Independence Day.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today demonstrations are being held at the embassies of Eritrea all over the world.\u00a0 Here too, in Israel, Eritrean refugees are demonstrating outside of the embassy on Bialik Street in Ramat Gan.<\/p>\n

Eritrea is listed on UN and other NGO reports as an absolute dictatorship without individual freedoms.<\/strong>\u00a0 On the Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders last January, Eritrea was ranked 179 \u2013 last, behind even North Korea.\u00a0 International reports tell of mandatory and indefinite recruitment into the armed forces, persecution of religious groups, and torture.\u00a0 This is why Eritreans are fleeing in great numbers, despite risk of death, and this is why the UN declared that Eritreans should not be deported to their country.\u00a0 Contrary to the impression created in Israel, citizens of Eritrea come not only to Israel, but also to poor countries throughout the African continent.<\/p>\n

What will happen if we nevertheless deport them?\u00a0 In past years, Libya and Malta have deported Eritreans back to their country. It was subsequently discovered that citizens so returned were imprisoned and tortured.\u00a0 This will also happen to Eritreans returned from Israel.\u00a0 The Eritreans are still here because the government of Israel adheres to the\u00a0guidelines of the UN High Commissioner on Refugees. If the government decides to expel them, Israel will be known in the world as a country that sends people to places where they are endangered.<\/p>\n

Imprisoning asylum seekers will not change the situation much.\u00a0 The construction of a detention center for refugees is being swiftly advanced.\u00a0 This massive infrastructure project has depleted the country\u2019s coffers of many millions of shekels, but it can only house 6,000 people.<\/p>\n

Yesterday we were informed of the government\u2019s intention to deport citizens of the new country of South Sudan currently living in Israel.\u00a0 This population numbers only approximately 800.\u00a0 The vast majority of asylum seekers are in fact citizens of Eritrea.\u00a0 The Minster of the Interior says these people are not refugees, and that we should lock them up and deport them. So why isn\u2019t that happening?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior are not taking responsibility.\u00a0 They prefer inciting and issuing empty promises they have no intention of keeping to doing the right thing: show leadership by leveling with the Israel public, admitting that there are no quick fixes and that the asylum seekers will not disappear tomorrow, and allocating the funds and resources necessary in order to give residents of the affected neighborhoods the security, hygiene, and welfare they deserve.\u00a0 They can also listen to the Police Commissioner who says what should be obvious: stop pushing the asylum seekers to desperation and crime, and let them work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was Eritrean Independence Day.\u00a0 Today demonstrations are being held at the embassies of Eritrea all over the world.\u00a0 Here … Read more…<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,58],"tags":[93],"class_list":["post-4476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-democracy-and-civil-liberties","category-refugees-and-asylum-seekers","tag-public-outreach"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4476"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4719,"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4476\/revisions\/4719"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}