Israel passes law to arrest, jail Africans without trial

Israel passes law to arrest, jail Africans without trial
Tue Dec 10, 2013 18:40:56

The parliament of the Israeli regime (the Knesset) has passed a law that allows that arrest and imprisonment of African immigrants for up to a year without trial, MPs announced on Tuesday.

The regime-backed bill amends earlier legislation from 2012 under which the so-called clandestine immigrants could be held for three years without trial, which was overturned by Tel-Aviv’s high court in September.

The move was the latest in a series of discriminatory measures targeting Africans entering occupied Palestine, which the apartheid-inspired Israeli regime says poses a threat to the entity’s "Jewish character."

Last year, Tel Aviv launched a brutal crackdown on what it claimed were 60,000 clandestine African immigrants, rounding up and deporting 3,920 by the end of the year, and building a hi-tech fence along the border with Egypt.

On November 24, the Israeli cabinet approved measures aimed at tackling the question of immigration, including a crackdown on employers, and paying Africans to return to their countries of origin.

It has also invested in the construction of a huge prison for immigrants who "disturb the public order," said the office of the Israeli hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The prison, to be inaugurated on December 12 and run by the Israel Prisons Services, will be open during the day but locked at night, and it will initially house up to 3,300 people, Israeli news outlets reported.

It said capacity could be expanded to hold up to 11,000.

Human rights groups say most African migrants in occupied Palestine cannot be deported because their lives would be under threat if they returned home to Sudan and Eritrea.

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