Israel, Don’t Send Eritreans Back to Hell Homeland
By Maya Paley and Stephen Slater Open letter to Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the United States We are deeply concerned that Israel is about to return Eritrean asylum seekers before allowing for an appropriate refugee status
By Maya Paley and Stephen Slater
Open letter to Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the United States
We are deeply concerned that Israel is about to return Eritrean asylum seekers before allowing for an appropriate refugee status determination process to take place.
According to those detained in the Saharonim internment camp for asylum seekers, on July 14, about 15 Eritreans who spent the last year in Saharonim prison were returned to Asmara, Eritrea where they will face probable arrest, torture, and danger to life. We are aware that there are around 200 Eritreans in total who have been designated to return to Eritrea.
If these people are returned, their lives will undoubtedly be in danger as a result. We are concerned that Israeli authorities are not acknowledging the imminent and serious danger to the asylum seekers’ lives nor are they processing their asylum claims responsibly, transparently, or fairly. We believe that such treatment of those who have fled from an oppressive and tyrannical regime is unconscionable.
As Jews, we know that such treatment of the stranger is forbidden by our Torah. As American Jews, we feel that such treatment of a disenfranchised minority challenges our legacy of fighting alongside other minorities for civil rights.
As members of the world community, we call on Israel to uphold its legal obligations. We call upon the Israeli authorities to desist from the attempt to return refugees to dangerous situations without allowing them to have their legal claim for asylum heard and evaluated.
More than 1,000 Eritreans have been locked up for over a year at the Saharonim and Ktziot internment camps in the desert. Every couple days, immigration officers visit them, informing them that their only way out of prison is to go back to their homeland.
Detainees in poor mental state may be willing to risk their lives and ask to go back to a country that according to the U.S. State Department Human Rights Report, detains its national service evaders in life-threatening conditions. Others cannot stand to continue living behind bars and claim that they prefer to die on their own land rather than rot in prison. No matter the explanation they give for their desire to go back, this procedure to pressure asylum seeker detainees is not truly a “Voluntary Return.”
Israeli authorities claim that those who have already been deported and those who are registered to return have expressed a desire to do so and completed the new Voluntary Return Procedure authorized by the Attorney General. The way they have been treated flies in the face of any common sense definition of “voluntary return.”
The supposed consent to be repatriated has only been given after the Israeli Ministry of Interior prevented asylum seekers from applying for refugee status for months, and has turned down every single asylum request of Eritrean national service defectors. Moreover, prisoners are repeatedly told by Ministry of Interior representatives at the internment camps that their only way out is to go back to Eritrea and that otherwise they will spend and indefinite amount of years in prison.
This is not the meaning of “voluntary return.”
All the while, the asylum seekers are kept in harsh desert conditions in the Israeli Negev, each of them given only 2.1 square meters (22,6 square feet) of space on average (compared to the Western average of 8.8 square meters (94.7 square feet) of space per inmate).
After Israeli Prison Authorities ended the mass hunger strike at Saharonim on June 30, more Eritreans supposedly gave their consent to leave the Israeli prison even if it means going back to Eritrea. We heard from several detained asylum seekers that 200 Eritreans have signed this agreement to go back to Eritrea.
We have attached a letter written by an Eritrean who was on the hunger strike in Ward 3 of Saharonim, which was published in Walla. It makes it clear that such a decision is only taken out of complete despair with life in Israeli prison after they were forced out of their week long hunger strike. As you may know, Dr. Tricia Redeker Hepner wrote to the Israeli government in June of 2012 explaining the causes of the mass exodus of Eritrean soldiers from their homeland.
We ask that you attend to this matter with the utmost urgency. The lives of many people depend on your prompt response.
Maya Paley and Stephen Slater are Co-Founders of Right Now: Advocates for African Asylum Seekers in Israelwww.asylumseekers.org
Said July 18, 2013
we’ve been hearing this kind of promises before. I hope its. serious and it’s becoming a stressful to Eritrea people. I hope the Zionistdon’t play cat and mouse . very soon we are going to not the dictator out. you going to regret what you did.. let my people go.
Said July 18, 2013
Young Lions. let’s go protest, Jewishtempo, embassy. whatever it takes to stop them.
Kabbire July 18, 2013
I will give more credit and gratitude to Maya Paley and Stephen Slater at “The Jews Daily, Forward” for speaking up against the voluntary or the involuntary deportation of the 15 Eritreans. There are also many Israeli NGOs and legal associations who spoke up for the rights of Eritrean asylum seekers in Israel against the Netanyahu government.
Compared to Israeli and Jewish associations, the Arab media, Egyptian intelligentsia, legal or political groups are a disgrace for their silence, even more shameful when you see the Arab police and doctors committing crimes against Eritreans, be it in Egypt, Sudan or Libya. There are also supposedly, Eritrean websites who will never publish the slavery and torture of enslaved Eritreans in the Arab world and their deportations.
Thanks to Assenna, Erena, Meron, Elsa, Dr Alganesh, sister Azezet, Dr Yebio, Aba Mussie and the Eritreans who went through the hell under the Arab-Bedouin slavery, we are better informed. Such is the Arab silence and the savagery inflicted on innocent Eritreans in Arab territory:
http://www.dw.de/anguish-for-eritrean-refugee-over-daughters-sinai-fate/a-16870454
Harrowing stories
Captives were often left lying in the dirt for days or weeks, he said. The traffickers used stones, chains, or branches from a tree to beat victims on their legs, back and even his head, Mulugeta explained. The pain was excruciating, but after a while, he admitted, he didn’t even feel it, his body was numb and it all became a blur. He often went in and out of consciousness. Then I asked him, as tenderly as possible: “Were you ever raped?” Wuldu struggled translating the question. Mulugeta stared at the city lights for what seemed to be hours, though it was only a couple of minutes. Finally Wuldu turns to me exasperated. “How can he talk about these things? What can he say? His concern is not for him. He worries for his daughters.” Mulugeta pulls out a tissue and begins to dab his eyes.
His upper body bent over, he stumbles when he tries to speak. Wuldu continued waving his hands in the air. “What could he do? He doesn’t remember much about the beatings.” Mulugeta said if wanted to see his daughters, the traffickers would bring the girls to him and rape them in front of him. There was nothing he could do. They cried for him, but he was forced to watch as they screamed and were violated, stripped and beaten.
The traffickers demanded $30,000 for each of them. The translator explained that many people in Mulugeta’s community in Eritrea raised the funds and gave them to his wife. When she sent money, the traffickers told him: “If we let one of the girls go, we don’t know if she will make it out, she might get taken by someone else, so you go – and send us the money. Your daughters will be safe here.”
Mulugeta arrived in Tel Aviv in November last year – forced to abandon his daughters. He was released after three months along with four others and brought to Israel where they were left out on the street. He says he is comfortable at the shelter. There are many men there who have gone through similar experiences. Wuldu expresses his admiration for Mulugeta. He often seeks his advice, his comfort and they pray. Mulugeta is grateful to the Israelis for giving him somewhere to say. “I want to give thanks,” he said.
Kabbire July 18, 2013
I will give more credit and gratitude to Maya Paley and Stephen Slater at “The Jews Daily, Forward” for speaking up against the voluntary or the involuntary deportation of the 15 Eritreans. There are also many Israeli NGOs and legal associations who spoke up for the rights of Eritrean asylum seekers in Israel against the Netanyahu government.
Compared to Israeli and Jewish associations, the Arab media, Egyptian intelligentsia, legal or political groups are a disgrace for their silence, even more shameful when you see the Arab police and doctors committing crimes against Eritreans, be it in Egypt, Sudan or Libya. There are also supposedly, Eritrean websites who will never publish the slavery and torture of enslaved Eritreans in the Arab world and their deportations.
Thanks to Assenna, Erena, Meron, Elsa, Dr Alganesh, sister Azezet, Dr Yebio, Aba Mussie and the Eritreans who went through the hell under the Arab-Bedouin slavery, we are better informed. Such is the Arab silence and the savagery inflicted on innocent Eritreans in Arab territory:
http://www.dw.de/anguish-for-eritrean-refugee-over-daughters-sinai-fate/a-16870454
Harrowing stories
Captives were often left lying in the dirt for days or weeks, he said. The traffickers used stones, chains, or branches from a tree to beat victims on their legs, back and even his head, Mulugeta explained. The pain was excruciating, but after a while, he admitted, he didn’t even feel it, his body was numb and it all became a blur. He often went in and out of consciousness. Then I asked him, as tenderly as possible: “Were you ever raped?” Wuldu struggled translating the question. Mulugeta stared at the city lights for what seemed to be hours, though it was only a couple of minutes. Finally Wuldu turns to me exasperated. “How can he talk about these things? What can he say? His concern is not for him. He worries for his daughters.” Mulugeta pulls out a tissue and begins to dab his eyes.
His upper body bent over, he stumbles when he tries to speak. Wuldu continued waving his hands in the air. “What could he do? He doesn’t remember much about the beatings.” Mulugeta said if wanted to see his daughters, the traffickers would bring the girls to him and rape them in front of him. There was nothing he could do. They cried for him, but he was forced to watch as they screamed and were violated, stripped and beaten.
The traffickers demanded $30,000 for each of them. The translator explained that many people in Mulugeta’s community in Eritrea raised the funds and gave them to his wife. When she sent money, the traffickers told him: “If we let one of the girls go, we don’t know if she will make it out, she might get taken by someone else, so you go – and send us the money. Your daughters will be safe here.”
Mulugeta arrived in Tel Aviv in November last year – forced to abandon his daughters. He was released after three months along with four others and brought to Israel where they were left out on the street. He says he is comfortable at the shelter. There are many men there who have gone through similar experiences. Wuldu expresses his admiration for Mulugeta. He often seeks his advice, his comfort and they pray. Mulugeta is grateful to the Israelis for giving him somewhere to say. “I want to give thanks,” he said.
Said July 20, 2013
if you know the history you will know the mystery, we know those al arab, we being were on 1400 years ago, for then human bean is meaningless, they bury the kids a life, I’m not expecting so much from them, accepted misery but my concern is, a country call, they practice democracy, or Zionist harming us some more now than ever, if you put a person in prison without a charge or don’t know when to come out in my book is the torture, you can defend those people all day all night, and that’s nice they got them on the front page on the newspaper. so what it is more damaging to me. and its have to be better solution than that. how long day going to be imprisoned in be torture and putting in the hole. this is very sickening, and unfortunately they had a kid, stop defending them
ogbai July 18, 2013
Oh! Iereal did you already forgot what happen to you not only one time but for so many times in history. You were scatered allover in the world as a refuge. I hope you know that was a punishment for not listening to GOD. Eventhough, that He was loving you so much as you were a chosen people. As God’s promised to OUR FATHER ABRAM/ABRAHAM/ and Jacob that he brought you back from allover the world again and again. Now, I am sure this will be for the last time. For his Kingdom has to come to solve all the problemes that the devil and his followers brought us into will end in that appointed time which is at hand comming very soon. To come back to my point,believe me we ERitreans that we are suferring from man made problems the kind of Hitler’s dictatorship. It will be history in a very short time. For now, we need your help we need your hospitality. Don’t be cruel God wouldn’t like that. Don’t you remember that Father Abraham hospitality to the two passerbys that they used to be angeles of God,and the blessing that fellows to it. thank you.
Said July 20, 2013
my friend which of those 55 denomination of church are you preaching, I myself I have five books so call Holy Bible, they all say in a different thing than u saying so what is this a new religion. god help us. united against dictator.