Rights group: Entry law meant to keep out Darfur refugees

[Scurrilous]

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"The harsh criticism by the High Court of the temporary order known as the Entry to Israel Law, which prevents the unification of families and the granting of citizenship to their Palestinian members, has not caused the state to moderate its stance. On the contrary, the state proposes extending the order by two years after it runs out in January, and expanding it to include not only residents of the Palestinian Authority but to a number of countries considered to be "threats." One reason for the proposed extension is to block the possibility that refugees of genocide in Darfur would be able to obtain political asylum here, according to attorney Anat Ben-Dor of the Refugee Rights Program of the law faculty at Tel Aviv University.

The bill would prohibit the interior minister from granting a residency permit to a citizen from a "threat country," or to anyone who constitutes a security risk to Israel. The law defines such individuals as anyone living in a country conducting terror activities against Israel, which Ben-Dor calls a "very technical argument."

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"Some 280 asylum-seekers from Sudan have come to Israel via Egypt and were arrested at the border. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees representative in Israel, Miki Bavli, says their lives are in danger in Sudan, both because of the genocide and because they sought asylum in Israel.

About two hundred of them are still in prison, jailed according to the law against infiltration, which allows for extended imprisonment with minimal judicial oversight."

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"Article 44 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 determines that a country to which refugees have fled must not treat them as enemy aliens simply because they are citizens of an enemy country. This article was proposed by Israel, in response to the treatment of Jewish refugees during World War II."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/797109.html