340 African Immigrants Stage Israel Jail Protest
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
More than 300 African migrants refused to return to their cells in an Israeli detention center this weekend, saying they are being held illegally and demanding release.
The 340 detainees – mostly from Sudan and Eritrea – barricaded themselves in the yard of the Saharonim detention center in the south of Israel this weekend. A special Israel Prison Service force, brought from outside the center, on Sunday morning returned them to their cells.
Most of the detainees were caught illegally crossing the Egyptian border into Israel. Prison service staff tried and failed to negotiate an agreement by which the detainees would return to their cells voluntarily. The detainees did not use violence.
The situation, which began when the detainees refused to return as normal to their cells, was resolved on Sunday when the prison service force entered the wing of the prison where the detainees were protesting, separated them from one another and took them back to their cells.
“The entry to the wing and the removal of the migrants from it has been completed,” the prison service said afterward. “The migrants demonstrated passive resistance only.”
For more, go to Haaretz
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
