Ethiopians facing expulsion from Israel in a month want asylum in Canada
YEHONATHAN TOMMER Wed Feb 8, 5:23 PM ET
JERUSALEM (CP) - An Israeli court dismissed the petition of 71 Ethiopian asylum seekers for immediate release from detention on Wednesday but instructed authorities to delay their deportation for a month.
The Ethiopians - most of them held for close to two years - want to go to Canada but face the prospect of being sent back to their native country first, as it could be months before Canada decides whether to admit them. Their lawyer plans to appeal.
Judge Oded Mudrick of the Tel Aviv District court ruled that there was "no substantial basis either by United Nations' name or local investigators to support their claim that they were at personal risk of persecution if deported to Ethiopia."
"As illegal residents," the judge said, "they were not entitled to temporary protection or assistance under Israeli law and therefore had no right to remain in the country until their request for immigration to Canada was accepted or rejected."
The process "could take months to complete and it was unjustified to delay their eviction or keep them in continued detention," Mudrick ruled.
"The authorities, and not the court, must find a solution."
Lawyer Yael Katz-Mastaum, who represents the petitioners, told reporters she would appeal to the High Court against the "harsh decision."
"These people have no choice," she said. "Their lives are in danger and they cannot return to Ethiopia."
She urged the Interior Ministry to "re-examine the individual cases of all the detainees, and not just those being interviewed by the Canadian immigration officials here next week."
Deputy Interior Minister Ruhama Avraham said she would confer with advisers to determine how to handle the situation.
Many of the petitioners - all young men and women - entered Israel in separate groups via the Sinai border with Egypt. They were arrested as illegal aliens and most have been imprisoned for close to two years.
They say they are political refugees who fled Ethiopia after a change of government in 1992 because their parents belonged to the outlawed Oromo Liberation Front, or because they were suspected of subversion. All claimed to have been tortured; the women allegedly raped, the men beaten. Some said they had walked hundreds of kilometres to escape.
Ten petitioners who were in court Wednesday appeared stunned by the decision.
They had arrived in the chamber with hats and coats pulled over their faces.
"We don't want to be seen," one of them told photographers and TV cameramen. "We are afraid for our families if we are identified. We fled to Israel hoping for protection and help in resettling," said the woman, who declined to give her name.
About 300 illegal aliens from Ethiopia are in Israel. None has been granted refugee status since 2004, Katz-Mastaum said.
So far, 25 Ethiopians who entered Israel in the past have received Canadian refugee status.
An Ethiopian who wanted to be identified only as Elias, 45, of Addis Ababa, said he has refused to speak to Ethiopian Embassy personnel who visited the group in jail and offered to help them return to Ethiopia.
"I don't believe them," said Elias, an accountant who supported his wife and two adolescent children back in the Ethiopian capital before his detention in Israel.
Mesfin Alemashv, an Ethiopian-Israeli and legal counsellor for the Jerusalem-based African Refugees Development Center, said Israel should deal with the refugees humanely.
"They merely ask to be given three to six months to complete their applications so that they can leave and move to Canada," Alemashv said.