Liberation mixed with sorrow


The Hotline for Refugees and Migrants released a statement today, August 11, 2015, on the High Court of Justice decision today.

hotline

The High Court of Justice voided parts of the Anti-Infiltration Law today. The Court ruled that detention in Holot for 20 months is unconstitutional and that those detained in Holot for over a year must be released immediately and no later than within 15 days. The state was given six months to formulate and alternative law for detention in Holot. The ruling also stated that Israel must not maintain a policy whose purpose is to break the spirit of asylum-seekers to coerce them to leave Israel. The judges also criticized the slow pace of examining asylum claims and the abysmally low recognition rate of refugees in Israel.

This means that in the coming days, hundreds of innocent asylum-seekers who’ve been detained in Holot without trial will walk free. I’m delighted that I’ll finally be able to meet them as free men again. This is an impressive success for our legal team, which thanks to its work, the High Court intervened for the third time, a rare occurrence in and of itself, and ruled it to be disproportional and hence unconstitutional.

However, this ruling also means that Holot will remain standing. Many asylum-seekers will continue to be jailed in Holot and others will be ordered to report to detention in the middle of the desert, without any justification. Lately, the Ministry of Interior enlarged the pool of possible detainees in Holot and 8,000 additional asylum-seekers may be summoned to detention. This new group will include, for the first time, those who have survived the torture camps in Sinai. We will do everything in our power to prevent their detention. We will continue to accompany asylum-seekers: in the long lines to the Ministry of Interior offices, in hearings ahead of summoning to Holot and in visits to Holot and Saharonim prison. We will fight with them to void the orders for detention, and we will continue to fight so that Israel’s policy toward asylum-seekers will be moral and righteous.

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