Haim Mula, a resident of the Shapira neighborhood in south Tel Aviv who was arrested last April in connection with the nighttime arson attack of several African asylum seeker homes and one kindergarten in his neighborhood, has signed a plea bargain that exempts him from jail time. Mula, 20, was originally accused of committing the attacks himself, admitted only to having prepared the firebombs for the actual arsonist, an offense for which he is expected to receive only a few months of community service and no jail time. It will be up to the court whether to approve this fairly…

Immigration authorities announced a halt to arrests during the holidays. But just before the announcement went into effect, and as holiday preparations and celebrations got underway in south Tel Aviv, asylum seekers found themselves under arrest and at risk of deportation. By Rami Gudovitch Friday was a rainy day in Tel Aviv. The head of the immigration authorities, Amnon Ben Ami, had issued a press release promising to cease all arrest operations for the duration of the Christian holidays and New Year’s Eve. The Levinsky Park multi-lingual library, an open library located at the center of the park, was closed…

The distortions in Israel's asylum system ensure a refugee recognition rate of zero. Not only does this place asylum seekers at risk, but it exposes what appears to be a concerted effort to overhaul the system so as to deport as many people as possible. In an article written a decade and a half ago, Dr. Sandy Kedar described the manner in the 1950s in which the courts participated in the national project to take over land held by Palestinians. This transpired through a series of rulings that altered the laws pertaining to the statute of limitations on acquisitions, as…

A new government regulation enables the indefinite incarceration of refugees suspected of committing crimes, even if there is not enough evidence to indict them. Were this regulation applied to Israeli politicians, many of them would be in prison. By Asaf Weitzen The upcoming elections will affect not only the lives of Israeli citizens, they will also affect the fates of more than 60,000 African immigrants living here. Ignorance regarding the circumstances of their arrival to Israel, along with fear and rare bureaucratic creativity, have led to a series of laws and regulations depriving them of their most basic legal protections, which…

Sudanese refugees from the Nuba Mountains are being registered by Israel's Interior Ministry as South Sudanese, making it difficult for them to find and keep work, pay for rent, bills, or food, and subjecting them to potential arrest and deportation. By Natasha Roth How would you react if someone told you that your name was no longer your name?  Even though you had an official, government-issued identity card with it written on?  Or that your nationality was now different from the one you've held all your life, though your passport proved where you were from?  Now imagine that this unilateral change to…

The letter below was written by Eritrean refugees, held in administrative detention in Saharonim prison. Under the Prevention of Infiltration Law, they can be imprisoned for three years or more. 31/10/2012 (To whom it may concern): Subject: The judgement against Eritrean refugees in Israel As we all know, it has been years since we were compelled to leave our country as a result of a deteriorating economic and political crisis. We came to Israel to escape intolerable levels of repression and human rights violations in our country. However, we are now concerned to learn that the government of Israel is…

Israel accepts or rejects the UN refugee agency's positions as it sees fit. In addition to indicating a general disregard for the United Nations, its approach toward UNHCR, whose establishment Israel once enthusiastically supported, demonstrates a serious need for additional refugee law expertise. By Dr. Yuval Livnat R. told Interior Ministry representatives that he is an Eritrean citizen and eligible for protection from deportation to his country. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which interviewed R., gave his lawyer from the Hotline for Migrant Workers a letter supporting his position. The Interior Ministry determined that R. is Ethiopian. A…

On Thursday, I traveled to the south with a group of journalists and bloggers to view the construction of new detention facilities around Ketsiot, near the Egyptian border. When completed, the four prisons in the area are meant to be able to hold more than 16,000 inmates, making them, together, the largest detention facility for immigrants in the West. The trip was organized by ASSAF - Aid Organization for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Israel, with the participation of Physicians for Human Rights, the Hotline for Migrant Workers and Amnesty International. Aid workers and reporters are not allowed into the…

Refugees in Egypt face regular threat of arrest, torture, and deportation to their countries of origin. The revolution has not changed that reality. On the life of one Darfuri refugee in search of protection. By Amir Heinitz "No one cares about what happens to refugees anyhow. Last week 300 Egyptians were detained without cause," expressed an employee at a Cairo-based refugee organization in response to the arrest of Monim Atron Soliman, a Darfuri refugee activist, just weeks before Egypt’s first democratic presidential elections. Fear runs deep. Publicly expression of political views constitutes a gamble. Unencrypted phone calls, emails or Facebook…

When it comes to the issue of refugees, or 'infiltrators,' emotions often get the best of those who are defending one term or another. But facts are facts, apples are apples, oranges are oranges. I was reminded of the above when reviewing Oren Ziv's images of the mother and daughter being arrested at a kindergarten in the Hatikva neighborhood of Tel Aviv. Naturally, no human can deny the human emotions as evident in the photos. Some will say that the Left is exploiting such images to make those who are for deportation feel and look bad. The Left will use…

On Sunday morning, inspectors from the Oz immigration unit arrested a mother moments after she brought her daughter to the kindergarten in the Hatikva neighborhood in Tel Aviv. The inspectors then arrested the daughter in the kindergarten. Neither of them had the option of going home to fetch their belongings or to say goodbye to friends and family. Few details are known about this arrest. However, several Israeli refugees and immigrant rights organizations are trying to get more information on where are they being held.    

In its response to a petition filed by human rights organizations and six African asylum seekers, the State Attorney's office said today that the government has not made an official decision to arrest Sudanese refugees. The reply also said that Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who stated publicly that asylum seekers have until October 15 to leave the country on their own accord, spoke without government authorization.  According to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, one of the organizations that filed the petition in hopes of preventing the state from detaining asylum seekers: The State Attorney emphasized in its reply…

Some 500 asylum seekers held in a prison in the desert recently refused food in protest of a new law that enables Israel to keep them in detention indefinitely. By Sharon Livne "Don't tell anyone my name, I'm afraid of what they'll do to me here if they know I talked." So began a nighttime telephone call with C., age 23, who has been incarcerated for 11 months  in the Saharonim prison in the Negev. According to C., the Eritrean detainees in Saharonim began a hunger strike in protest of their imprisonment for a minimum of three years, in accordance…