Activists Challenge Israel's İndefinite Detainment Of Refugees

Activists, led by Tel Aviv University's Refugee Rights Clinic, appealed an Israeli court ruling that allowed for Israel to indefinitely detain refugees who refused to be sent to a country other than their own after their asylum was rejected. 



The appeal was filed on behalf of a group of Eritreans refusing to be sent to Rwanda. 



Israel-based refugee rights group Hotline For Refugees and Migrants (HRM) issued a joint-statement Monday arguing the court had not given enough consideration to evidence of "the serious harm that is at risk to asylum-seekers, who are left without any legal status or ability to stay in the third country for any suitable amount of time."



"The organizations call on [the] Supreme Court to prevent the imprisonment of those who refuse to leave for a third country – a country where their security, liberty and rights will not be guaranteed appropriately," the statement said. 



It also said the court ignored a UN High Commissioner for Refugees statement that said that Israel's policy of sending asylum seekers to a third country left them without protection and made them vulnerable to repeated arrests, especially with no system to monitor the refugees after leaving Israel. 



"A country cannot avoid its obligations by relying on promises of the recipient state, even more so when the conditions of the agreement are classified and not publically released," said the statement.



The appeal was taken to Israel's Supreme Court after a previous petition to halt the detentions was rejected by the Beersheva District Court, which had ruled for indefinite detentions. 



HRM and other Israeli rights groups have said that Israel's confidential agreements to deport refugees to other countries, thought to be Rwanda and Uganda, have "no precedence anywhere in the world."



Israel has described the deportation scheme as voluntary but the ruling to detain asylum seekers who refuse to leave Israel has been criticized as forcing refugees into vulnerable situations. 



In September, rights group International Refugee Rights Initiative (IRRI) published a report based on interviews with "voluntary deportees" who complained that, despite promises from Israel, they were not granted legal status in Rwanda or Uganda and were encouraged to leave or live there without documents. 



The IRRI report said 1,500 people had agreed to the deportation but that the conditions on arrival had forced many to leave soon afterwards, often embarking on dangerous boat journeys across the Mediterranean to Europe. 



The report said the reason many had agreed to be sent to Rwanda or Uganda was because of the "intolerable" alternatives of being sent back to the countries they fled from or being detained in Israeli prisons. 



In August, the Israeli High Court of Justice criticized part of Israel's law on immigration, rejecting 20-month detentions as too long and ordering the release of 1,200 detainees from the Holot detention facility, where asylum seekers are often held without charge for extended periods. 



In September, however, the Israel-based African Refugee Development Center (ARDC) issued a letter complaining that even those freed had their freedoms curtailed. 



"The police have pressured and detained them even when they visit friends here during the day. Furthermore, the government has provided the released asylum seekers with no shelter and no solutions," said ARDC Director Mutasim Ali. "The Israeli government aims to make the lives of asylum seekers miserable in order to coerce them to leave Israel." - Filistin