By Kathryn Maureen Ryan
Impunity Watch, Middle East

Tel Aviv, ISRAEL – More than 30,000 African asylum seekers crammed into the streets of Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, Israel calling for migrant workers to go on strike and demanding the Israeli government recognize their status as refugees with chants of “we need asylum,” “We are all refugees” and “yes to freedom, no to prison!” The demonstration is the largest protests by migrants in the history of the Jewish state.

According to police spokesperson Mickey Rosenfeld, most of the protesters were asylum seekers who had fled Africa and wish to stay in the country. He said “There are thousands of people assembling in central Tel Aviv and they are mostly Africans who are requesting to stay in the country.”

Under new legislation passed by the Knesset on December 10 last year Israel police are able to identify and detain any migrants who have entered the country illegally. Under this legislation these migrants can be held for up to a year without trail in Israel. The state has also opened a new facility in the Negev desert for the purpose of detaining illegal migrants.

Mutasim Ali, of the African Refugee Development Center, entered Israel after fleeing Darfur is among those calling for African migrants to be granted Refugee status by the Israeli government. He says “All of us are fleeing genocide, fleeing dictatorship regimes. Looking for protection,” according to Ali a migrant “doesn’t care where he gets it. We know it’s too difficult to cross the border making our way to Israel, but that’s the only option at the time.”

An Eritrean asylum-seeker who participated in the demonstration said “We have fled persecution, dictatorships, civil wars and genocides.” Arguing that the government of Israel “must study our requests for asylum and treat us like human beings.”

Asylum seekers complain that the new legislation in Israel is evidence that their call for refugee status is being ignored by the Israel government, which is instead trading the migrants as illegal workers, the state’s new legislation treats migrants as illegal workers.

The asylum seekers complain that the Israeli government isn’t viewing their goal as legitimate, but rather sees them as migrant workers. According to activists, more than 50,000 migrants work in illegal, low-wage, positions in Israel, a country of 7.9 million people. Most of these activist have fled violence and feminine in East-Africa.

The fight for recognition of refugees in Israel is an uphill battle. Since the creating of the Jewish state in 1948, Israel has recognised the status of fewer than 200 refugees, human rights groups say.

For more information please see:

Al Jazeera – Thousands Of Asylum Seekers Protest In Israel – 5 January 2014

CNN International – African Migrants Protest, Push for Asylum in Israel – 5 January 2014

Haaretz – Knesset Okays Detention of Migrants without Trial – 10 December 2014

The Guardian – African Migrants Stage Tel Aviv Protests against Israel’s New Detention Law – 6 January 2014