African Refugees in Israel

The LGBT Asylum News blog recently circulated a news story published earlier in the year on a documentary film entitled Ha'plitim ("The Refugees") that "seeks to expose the moral and legal questions underlying refugee status in Israel." The article notes the following:

While Israel is party to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, the government has not yet adopted asylum legislation. An approximate 17,000 asylum-seekers have fled to Israel from Sudan, Eritrea, Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Ivory Coast. Many have been detained in prison camps and over 270 have been returned to Egypt.

To learn more about the status and treatment of refugees in Israel, browse through these (fairly recent) resources:

• African Refugees' Influx in Israel from a Socio-Political Perspective, CARIM-RR 2009/04 (Euro-Mediterranean Consortium for Applied Research on International Migration, 2009) [text]
• Israel: Border Barrier to Keep Asylum-Seekers Out (IRIN News, Nov. 2010) [text]
  
• Israel: Refugees, Asylum-seekers and Protection - Analysis (IRIN News, July 2009) [text]
• Israel Fact Sheet (UNHCR, June 2010) [text]
• "Otherness" as the Underlying Principle in Israel’s Asylum Regime (ExpressO, 2009) [text]
• A Promised Land for Refugees? Asylum and Migration in Israel, New Issues in Refugee Research, no. 183 (UNHCR, Dec. 2009) [text]
• "Responsibility Sharing and the Rights of Refugees: The Case of Israel," The George Washington International Law Review, vol. 41, no. 3 (2010) [text]
• "Solving Israel’s African Refugee Crisis," Virginia Journal of International Law, vol. 51, no. 1, Fall 2010 [text]
• Undocumented Migrants, Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Israel (EuroMesco, Feb. 2009) [text]

Tagged Publications.