— UNWELCOME —
African refugees in Israel
ISRAEL, 2016
After fleeing their war torn countries, genocide and repressive regimes, many of the estimated 45,000 African asylum seekers in Israel face formidable resistance from state institutions and are stuck in a legal limbo since the day they arrived. Mostly coming from Eritrea and Sudan, they hoped to obtain asylum in Israel in greater numbers than in previous years after turmoil in Libya in 2011 made the route through there to Europe nearly impossible and thus increasingly pushed them into Israel.
Israel has so far recognized fewer than 1% of asylum claims, the lowest percentage in the Western world and has been notoriously sluggish in assessing each individual asylum claim. It granted refugee status to only one Sudanese from the war torn region of Darfur and to a handful of Eritreans. The remaining and overwhelming majority remain in a vulnerable situation in constant fear of detention, forced deportation and under pressure to be"voluntarily" deported.
According to International law, countries cannot deport asylum seekers without first assessing their individual asylum claims to determine if a refugee status is applicable. In this sense, for the government of Israel to be able to forcefully deport non-eligible asylum seekers in greater numbers, it would also have to start assessing asylum requests and so, to also start granting refugees statuses to those with legitimate asylum claims. According to Israeli NGO ASSAF, Eritreans and Sudanese, who comprise “90% of the asylum seeking population in Israel, receive relatively high recognition rates as refugees around the world ( 88% and 64% respectively). However, the current rate of refugee status recognition in Israel is 0.2%”.
Instead of assessing each individual claim for refugee status, as non profit ‘Right Now’ explains, Israel “groups asylum seekers from Eritrea and Sudan under a policy of‘temporary collective protection’. By utilizing this policy, the government of Israel acknowledges the danger in these two countries and does not deport asylum seekers to their countries of origin. Asylum seekers are given deferred deportation orders, making their stay in Israel legal”. However, this documentation is not a refugee status and so “does not allow them access to formal work permits, health care or welfare services. Asylum seekers are thus stuck in a legal limbo; while being allowed to remain in the country, they lack the necessary access to survive, advance, and integrate” facing widespread social stigma and unrecognized as legitimate asylum applicants by state institutions.
The overall situation of African asylum seekers in Israel finds its grounds in Israel’s policy towards asylum: it argues that Israel is meant to absorb Jewish migrants and refugees, and that many other countries can absorb other refugees with better chances at successful integration. Officials, such as Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, label African asylum seekers as “infiltrators” whose presence in the country could threatens Israel’s “existence as a Jewish and democratic state” and argue almost all are economic migrants and so do not need asylum.
This is the conclusion taken from the government’s numbers as is summarized by non profit HIAS - Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society: of the few asylum requests that have been considered, “less than 0.5% have been found to be ‘legitimate’. The rest of those considered have been determined to be migrants who entered Israel illegally for economic opportunity, and who therefore are not entitled to refugee protection under international law”.
But Prime minister Netanyahu is not alone in his perceptions of asylum seekers: according to online newspaper Times of Israel, “in 2012, some 86 percent of Israelis said they viewed African migrants as “a danger to Israel.” Israelis who have shown strong opposition to their presence also cite a feeling of insecurity. However, in a ruling on the Holot “open detention” facility for asylum seekers located in the Negev desert, Israeli Supreme Court justice Edna Arbel stated that "studies show the crime level among African migrants is lower than that of [Israeli] society in general". The study was carried out by Israel's parliament, the Knesset.
Asylum seekers and Israeli activists say these and other measures are meant to break their spirits into accepting to take $3,500 from the Israeli government’s “voluntary deportation” scheme. The measure involves being deported to one of a number of undisclosed countries where safety as a whole — and especially from being deported into the asylum seeker’s country of origin where they face imprisonment and death — is far from guaranteed. It is believed that some of those countries may be Uganda and Rwanda. Reports indicate these nations have received arms, military training, agricultural assistance or money for receiving Israel’s unwanted asylum seekers.
However, the decision by African asylum seekers to leave Israel is often the culmination of a long winding road that begins much earlier on. After many asylum seekers are tortured and imprisoned along the way to asylum, by the time they arrive to Israel, their hardships are far from over: many have been ordered, without trial, to as much as a year in the “Holot” detention facility for African asylum seekers, located in the Negev desert in the south of the country. The camp is an “open prison” where inmates can go out, but need to be back before the 10pm headcount in order not be transferred to a closed prison. Any single male asylum seeker under the age of 60 can be arbitrarily sent to Holot.
In a case that caught some media attention, three Eritrean asylum seekers who left Israel were executed by ISIS in a Libyan beach after being finally persuaded to take $3,500 from the Israeli government’s “voluntary deportation” scheme and leave Israel. After at least one of them, Tesfay Kidane, was sent to Rwanda and was reportedly not accepted there, he continued to Sudan and then to Libya where he tried to reach Europe by boat, only for the boat to be sent back to Libyan shores where eventually he was kidnapped by the so called Islamic State group. At least one of the three asylum seekers who were killed at the hands of ISIS in Libya, was also held in the Holot detention camp before eventually bulking under the pressure of his situation and accepting to leave Israel through the “voluntary” deportation scheme.
But Israel is hardly alone in its effort to rid itself of asylum seekers. In many instances, cases beyond its borders have mirrored Israel’s and vice versa. For example, despite Russia’s bombing campaign in Syria and its long time economic and political relations with the country, Russia has only granted two Syrians with refugee status between 2011 and April 2016, while thousands remain vulnerable in Russia — like in Israel — in a limbo, working illegally with overstayed temporary visas. Russian authorities have also refused visa extensions and suggested asylum seekers go back to Syria.
Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have pledged (0) zero resettlement places. They have been criticized for their unwillingness to take in refugees despite monetary contributions to humanitarian efforts elsewhere and varying stakes in arming the Syrian rebel and Islamist factions fighting the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Many European citizens, too, don’t appear to have much willingness to absorb asylum seekers. A 2014 Pew Research Center poll showed that vast majorities in Italy, Greece, France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Poland and Germany want immigration to decrease or stay the same.”
In Slovakia there is a preference by the government to hosting asylum seekers of a specific religion: according to the Washington Post while the Slovakian government announced that “it would help share the burden of the influx of tens of thousands of migrants into Europe by taking in 200 Syrian refugees”, it goes on to explain that apart from the small number proposed, this “was made all the more glaring by another stipulation — these refugees had to be Christian”. This also seems to be the case in Poland. Meanwhile, Slovakia, along with Hungary, filed a joint case against the EU's refugee distribution scheme that redistributes migrants from the most burdened countries Greece and Italy among the remaining countries in the EU bloc on a quota basis.
In Italy, magazine L'Espresso recently released phone calls which reveal that the Italian Coast Guard let dozens of refugees drown in the Mediterranean Sea in 2013.
In Hungary, which has one of the harshest immigration policies and according to Human Rights Watch, asylum seekers and refugees are called “intruders,” and “potential terrorists”, all bent on “destroying Western civilization, burying Christianity and the Western culture”. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán himself in July referred to migration as “poison.” Two years ago Hungary entrenched itself with a razor-wire border fence as Israeli news outlets also reported that Hungary and Bulgaria made contacts with Israel as a result of their wish to to build fences similar to the one on the Israeli-Egyptian border in 2013 that Israel built to stem the arrival of asylum seekers to Israeli territory. Despite the arrival of asylum seekers having come to almost a complete halt since then, Israel has nonetheless not made it easier for those already in Israel to be granted refugee status and thus be properly assisted.
The United States, under Donald Trump's administration, has insisted on banning the entry to the US by any nationals from several majority Muslim countries which also includes asylum seekers and refugees, green card holders and dual citizenship nationals. The unsurmountable obstacles now placed on the way of those seeking asylum from those countries in the US are explained in an article by Bill Frelick : “The order states that after 90 days, any foreign nationals will be barred from entry if their home country does not provide "the information needed ... to adjudicate any visa, admission, or other benefit under U.S. immigration law. That would presumably include refugee status”. In summary, and as Human Rights Watch European Media Director Andrew Stroehlein put it in his twitter feed: “'Extreme vetting' or extreme absurdity? Trump order means oppressed refugee needs permission of oppressor for entry”.
Echoing Israeli PM Netanyahu’s remarks, The New York Times describes Peter Dutton, Australian immigration minister, as Australia’s “own little Trump”: “last May he portrayed the asylum seekers as illiterates bent on stealing Australian jobs, and he has suggested “mistakes” were made in letting in too many Lebanese Muslim immigrants. His soft bigotry resonates with enough voters to sway elections”. This daunting article by the New York Times, titled “Broken Men in Paradise: The world’s refugee crisis knows no more sinister exercise in cruelty than Australia’s island prisons”, details the suffering inflicted in almost complete secrecy “on asylum seekers from across the world banished byAustralia” to remote island prisons to languish in limbo for years.
Even asylum seekers found to be legitimate refugees, have been detained each for several years in these camps located in Manus Island and the tiny island country of Nauru.
The camps were created as part of deals — criticized by Human Rights watchdogs and the United Nations — between Australia and Papua New Guinea and Nauru that stipulated that asylum seekers arriving by boat to Australia would be placed in these camps while their asylum claims are assessed. Journalists and human rights groups have been barred from accessing these offshore island camps and reports have usually been done without permission from Papuan, Nauru or Australian authorities.
A report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees found that a majority of 88% of the 181 asylum seekers and refugee detainees examined in Manus Island are suffering from severe mental health disorders as a result of “the punitive conditions of open-ended mandatory detention in a highly securitized environment and the lack of any viable long-term solution” which has “exposed asylum-seekers to circumstances causing harm, notably related to mental health, as well as different forms of alleged abuse”. The report also adds that “during UNHCR’s April 2016 visit, allegations were made that some asylum-seekers and refugees have been the target of bullying, harassment and sexual assault, including rape at the Lombrum ‘Regional Processing Centre’”.
Similarly to Israel, and apart from all other policies meant to break asylum seeker's spirit, Canberra has allocated a reported$25,000 for asylum seekers to voluntarily depart from Australia. Also Germany, for example, recently announced plans to “offer up to 1,200 euros ($1,275) to asylum seekers to voluntarily return home”.
Meanwhile it was recently reported that the camp in Manus Island is set to be phased out and begin to close in weeks. Had it not been for the Papua New Guinea Supreme Court’s April 2016 order to shutdown the Manus detention centre, chances are it would still be running for indefinite time.
Even though the numbers of asylum seekers trying to make it to Australia are tiny in comparison to those in Europe or Israel, the promise to stop the arrival of migrants to Australian shores has been key to election winning. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s center-right coalition came to power on policies that deny any asylum seeker trying to reach Australia by boat from ever being allowed to settle there”.
As for the asylum seekers in Manus, Wendy Williams writes that those found to be refugees have been told they “have the option of temporarily relocating to a so-called “transit centre” near the main town of Lorengau, settling in the PNG community, or returning to their countries of origin”. However, these ‘options’ seem to be anything but. Those whose status was determined to be eligible for refugee status means that authorities recognize that there is tangible danger of them being imprisoned, tortured or killed if they are to return to their countries of origin. As for settling in the Papua New Guinea community, this seems to also be a dangerous alternative as there were several cases of breaching of the camps with harmful intent and violence by locals on asylum seekers.
However Australia and Israel seem to be increasingly less isolated cases when it comes to punitive policies of asylum seekers as a deterrent to those seeking asylum in the future in their territories.
Similarly to Australia, Hungary took a step further and is detaining asylum seekers in razor wire surrounded closed camps. As the New York Times explains “in most countries, asylum seekers are usually allowed to come and go freely, even if housed in immigration centers.”
Europe as a whole and for its part seems to be indirectly employing similar policies as Australia’s as it has now becomes evident that Greece became the European equivalent to Australia’s offshore island prisons. An article in The Guardian describes the Aegean isles as becoming “de facto detention facilities – a dumping ground for nearly 14,000 stranded souls, unable to move until permits are processed and fearful of what lies ahead.” Many more thousands remain in mainland Greece, totallingan estimated 50,000 in the country. Europe is also dragging its feet in helping process asylum seekers applications in Greece, thus condemning thousands to be stranded in limbo with tragic consequences:“in conditions denounced by human rights groups, cases of self-harm, mental illness and attempted suicides have reportedly soared – prompting mounting concerns that unless resolved the risks of radicalisation will also grow”.
This is not however the first time the world was confronted with the plight of those running from harm. While the contexts are different, a lot parallels the years surrounding the Evian conference of 1938. Countries including the US, UK and Australia all gathered in France to discuss the issue of Jewish refugees on the cusp of what would be World War II and the Holocaust, but rather took the occasion to let clear why they would not extend their immigration quotas.
In an important historic analysis about the conference Imogen Wall explains that “key concern was the destabilising effect that large numbers of refugees might have on society, driven by the perception that they would be unable to assimilate, a notion that is still front and centre of the current debate over the Syrian refugee crisis. ‘We have no real racial problem,’ declared the Australian representative at Evian, T. W. White. ‘We are not desirous of importing one’”.
Years after the conference and the understanding that no country would take significant numbers of refugees, and as Sam Jones explains, “helped [Adolf] Hitler conclude that extermination could be an alternative to deportation”.
While circumstances are historically different, unwillingness to take in refugees seems to persist regardless of the nature and the scale of what prompts the flight for safety of asylum seekers.
“But today’s politicians, in addition to operating in the post-1951 framework of international humanitarian law regarding refugees, have access to a wealth of data and analysis that their 1938 counterparts did not, particularly that assimilation is possible and that refugees tend to bring net economic benefits. [...] One key lesson from Evian: failing to tackle a mass refugee problem is a decision that is neither neutral nor without consequences”, Imogen Wall concludes.
This series of images, focusing on the plight of African asylum seekers in Israel, comes within a context where the biggest refugee crisis taking place in Europe since World War II and the exponential increase of the number of displaced persons throughout the globe is shaping the fabric of contemporary politics and societies. Adding to this, Israel’s long standing policy towards African asylum seekers has sent ripple effects into the situation of refugees beyond its fortified borders. Many of the measures taken by Israel’s government to stem the arrival to its territory of asylum seekers over the last decade have mirrored those taken in Australia and elsewhere and have also been taken as one example by countries in Europe and beyond as different regions throughout the world have their turn in dealing with those seeking safety at their doorstep.
It is to answer the seemingly continuous need for further understanding of the consequences of asylum policies on asylum seekers, refugees and migrants that this photographic essay tries to contribute to. In this sense, this photo series goes in search of what is the situation of the African asylum seekers in Israel stranded in limbo there as a way of looking into a possible future of asylum seekers in other countries, as years pass and remain increasingly in a prolonged vulnerable situation, effectively in a limbo.