Eritreans protest outside embassy in Ramat Gan

Dozens demonstrate against dictatorship in Eritrea. 'We seek refugee status here until there is democracy in Eritrea,' one protester says

Shahar Chai Published: 05.25.12, 13:53 / Israel News

In the backdrop of the growing protest against infiltrators in Israel, some 150 Eritreans demonstrated outside the Eritrean Embassy in Ramat Gan, in protest of dictatorship in their country.

The demonstration was held on the occasion of Eritreat's Independence Day and is part of a series of protests held by exiled Eritreans worldwide. The protesters raised signs which read: "President Afewerki's dictatorship=death for Eritrean people" and "The Eritrean people do not want to return to a dictatorship."

Molugata Tomongi, an Eritrean asylum seeker who has been in Israel for the past four years said, "I am happier than ever to demonstrate on behalf of my family that cannot speak out and protest.

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Protesters demand democracy in Eritrea (Photo: Dana Kopel)

"There is a dictatorship in Eritrea. We cannot go back there right now. We are seeking refugee status until a democracy is instated there. We too have families that love us and worry about us."

Tomongi added that the State of Israel is not helping Eritrean asylum seekers. "We are not allowed to work, have no money for rent and that is why you see refugees in Tel Aviv's Central Bus Station."

Addressing recent violent incidents, he said: "There is good and bad among Eritreans just as there is in Israel."

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'We can't go back right now' (Photo: Danal Kopel)

Emannuel Yamani, another asylum seeker, said he was stunned at the recent violent wave directed against migrants. "I have just one thing to say to all those protesters: look at your own past. They were refugees too. I take no notice of all those who took to the streets and declared they hate us, I look at the Israelis who understand us and help us."

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'No money for rent' (Photo: Dana Kopel)

The protest was also attended by Sigal Rosen of the Migrant Workers Hotline. "If the government doesn't want them here and that's what it looks like, it will be well advised to cool off relations with the dictator who was recently named the worst dictator in the world," she said.

Rosen noted that Israel is avoiding imposing sanctions on Eritrea as part of efforts to improve the country's human rights situation.

Yoha,

Are these protesting refugees not Eritreans? What kind of idiot are you?

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Eritreans in TA call for democracy in homeland
By BEN HARTMAN
05/25/2012 22:27

Around 200 Eritrean asylum seekers gather at Eritrean embassy, call for end to political repression by Eritrean president Afwerki.

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Photo: Ben Hartman

Around 200 Eritrean asylum seekers gathered outside the Eritrean embassy in Ramat Gan on Friday, to call for an end to the political repression of President Isaias Afwerki’s regime, and for Israel to take steps to support democracy for the people of Eritrea.

Carrying signs reading “no to dictatorship, yes to democracy” and “free all political prisoners”, the protestors called for an end to the rape and torture of Eritrean asylum seekers in Sinai and drew comparisons between the Afwerki regime and those in North Africa and the Middle East that experienced regime change during the Arab Spring.

The demonstration was held on Eritrean Independence Day, and joined similar rallies in cities around the world. The demonstrations was significantly larger and more organized than one held last year on the same date.

One demonstrator, 25-year-old Filimon Razameh, said that Eritreans have drawn inspiration from the revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia, and elsewhere in the Arab world, but that “still nothing has changed in Eritrea.”

Habtom Mehari, an MA student in environmental studies at Ben-Gurion University, read a statement that said that while Eritrean Independence Day represents “an impeccable victory against injustice, it has also become a bittersweet occasion when we are reminded that denial of rights can also come from within and hence the fight for freedom continues for Eritreans.”

He added that in Eritrea thousands of people “are detained in one of the most wide and intricate networks of prisons in the world. Every Eritrean family has been touched by the scourge of disappearances that renders loved ones untraceable for months and years on need. Torture, degrading and inhuman treatment of prisoners is so rife that most people who escape these prisons leave the country severely traumatized.”

Eritreans make up the majority of the around 60,000 illegal African migrants in Israel. They make their way to Israel after fleeing Eritrea, where men face lifelong forced army conscription in a country where political repression and corruption are rife.

The violent anti-African migrant protest in south Tel Aviv’s Hatikvah neighborhood on Wednesday night was also not far from the minds of those present, and presumably among the Israeli press at the scene, most of whom were not present at last year’s protest.

David Abraham, 23, lives in the Hatikvah neighborhood and said that he and other Eritreans are afraid to leave their houses in Hatikvah at night and feel powerless and unable to go to police when attacked or threatened by native Israelis in the neighborhood.

“I love my country and want to go back, but we can’t until the situation changes there. Nobody wants to stay here in Israel, but things need to change here while we are here.”
http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Artic ... ?id=271482

Very Good!!!!

AWASH ! Atewash yes this people are opposing Isayas but Isayas or PFDJ have more people to their side actually 80-90% of the society is with them , if that make me idiot then i can live with that but what is it to you? aren't you Ethiopian or there isn't problem in Ethiopia ,if there is then why aren't you talk about that ? I hope you are not gonna call Abebe gelew an idiot also just because he express his feeling towards your midget Meles but look even meles has idiot supporters like you also , the question is both me and you are irrelevant .

AWASH ! Atewash yes this people are opposing Isayas but Isayas or PFDJ have more people to their side actually 80-90% of the society is with them , if that make me idiot then i can live with that but what is it to you? aren't you Ethiopian or there isn't problem in Ethiopia ,if there is then why aren't you talk about that ? I hope you are not gonna call Abebe gelew an idiot also just because he express his feeling towards your midget Meles but look even meles has idiot supporters like you also , the question is both me and you are irrelevant .

80 to 90% lol...where the hell did you get that data? for gods sake, why do you suckers lie so much

AWASH ! Atewash yes this people are opposing Isayas but Isayas or PFDJ have more people to their side actually 80-90% of the society is with them , if that make me idiot then i can live with that but what is it to you? aren't you Ethiopian or there isn't problem in Ethiopia ,if there is then why aren't you talk about that ? I hope you are not gonna call Abebe gelew an idiot also just because he express his feeling towards your midget Meles but look even meles has idiot supporters like you also , the question is both me and you are irrelevant .

shabo,
What I don't get is: why do you, calling yourself Ethiopia, feel the need to defend the butchers of Askaria? What's it to you? I could be interested in any subject I want and attack the shabo bastards at every juncture. Why, if you are Ethiopian, do you stick your neck out to defend the bastard shabo regime unless you are indeed a shabo stooge pretending to be Ethiopian?

Those protestors are Tigreans pretending to be Eritreans. We know the Tigrean spies have inflitirated some Eritrean diaspora communities around the world. I am not saying there aren't some lazy Eritreans that like to sleep in Levinsky Park, but most of them are people with plan and conviction. As soon as they enter Europe or NA, they join the real Eritrean Diaspora community to stand along side their family's interest. Taiwan sends rice to Ethiopia, as Ethiopia exports rice to Saudi Arabia, only confused economists understand this. Eritreans cannot subscribe such policy for their country, and that's what they are being asked, and I remind them to look at Ethiopia before they stand against their country.

Aba Dula, read and learn.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-d ... s-1.434190

Netanyahu orders swift deportation of 25,000 illegal African migrants

Orders acceleration of holding facility construction for citizens of Eritrea and Sudan who cannot be deported due to conditions in their home countries.

By Barak Ravid | Jun.04,2012 | 1:21 AM

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his ministers to accelerate efforts to deport citizens of South Sudan, the Ivory Coast, Ghana and Ethiopia who are living in Israel illegally on Sunday.

Speaking at Sunday's cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said that while it is not possible to expel citizens of Eritrea and Sudan, whose lives would be at risk in their home countries, holding facilities for them must be built in the Negev as quickly as possible.

A senior Israeli official said that two different groups of infiltrators were presented during Sunday's cabinet debate. The first was infiltrators from countries with which Israel has diplomatic relations, and with regard to whom there is no barrier to repatriating them under international law, he said. This group numbers some 25,000 of the approximately 60,000 African migrants now in Israel.

The second group comprises infiltrators from Eritrea, Sudan and Somalia, who cannot be repatriated because their lives would be at risk, according to the official. This group comprises some 35,000 people.

Sudan is classified as an enemy country, another reason that infiltrators can't be returned there, he said, while Eritrea, though it has diplomatic relations with Israel, considers those who fled the country to be AWOL soldiers, and upon their return home they could be severely punished. Eritrea has a mandatory conscription law for all men aged 17-45, and demands reserve duty up to age 55. There are no exemptions.

With regard to the first group of infiltrators, Netanyahu said, "Whoever can be sent away should be sent away from here as quickly as possible."

With regard to the second group, he said, "It's clear that we cannot return Sudanis and Eritreans to their countries."

During the cabinet debate, Netanyahu appeared impatient and dissatisfied with the conduct of the relevant ministries and banged on the table several times, according to sources who were present. He ordered a substantial expansion of the Saharonim lockup in the Negev so that it could hold the tens of thousands of people who can't be repatriated.

He also ordered a team of interrogators put together to interview all those who will be brought to the Saharonim facility to determine whether they are indeed entitled to refugee status.

The Foreign Ministry has been conducting intensive discussions for several months with the governments of those countries whose citizens can be repatriated, a senior ministry source said.

For example, Israel is exerting heavy pressure on Ethiopia to begin returning its citizens who are in Israel illegally. Ethiopian diplomats have visited the Saharonim facility and interviewed Ethiopian nationals.

The Foreign Ministry has also been in regular contact with South Sudan, whose nationals are being given a chance to return voluntarily. On June 17 a plane carrying some 200 South Sudanese will fly from Israel to Juba, the South Sudan capital. In mid-July there will be another plane of South Sudanese who agreed to leave but asked to do so after the school year ends.

A senior Foreign Ministry source said that Israel has made it clear to countries like the Ivory Coast and Ghana that the government plans to deport their nationals, by force if necessary, and that if their governments don't issue the migrants travel documents, then Israel will do so.

"We told them, 'Either we do this together, or we will just put them on planes by ourselves,'" the senior official said.

The Foreign Ministry also said that over the past five years it has approached third countries to ascertain whether any of them would be willing to accept refugees from Eritrea or Sudan. Israeli diplomats were in touch with 30 African countries and 10 Western countries but were categorically refused.

"All the African states and many European ones are dealing with the same problem," a senior source said. "Everyone to whom we addressed a request slammed the door in our faces."