On January 11th the Israeli parliament passed an amendment to the so-
called “Infiltrators Lawâ€. This revision allows the authorities to
automatically imprison asylum seekers for three years. The plan includes
constructing a 10,000 person jail to house the refugees. According to
Amnesty International, this puts Israel at the top of the Western World for
length of imprisonment of refugees. Today Israel is home to nearly 50,000
asylum seekers from Africa, 85% of whom are from Eritrea and Sudan.
The Real News’ Lia Tarachansky spoke to Nic Schlagman and Johannes
Bayu of the African Refugee Development Center, Ran Cohen of
Physicians for Human Rights, and “Ibrahim”, an Eritrean asylum seeker in
Israel for ten years.