Fearing for their lives, 71 Ethiopian asylum-seekers hang onto hope in Israel

Ruth Sinai:

The Tel Aviv District Court will today hear petitions from 71 Ethiopians against the government's intention to deport them to Ethiopia, where they are certain their lives will be in jeopardy.

They slipped into Israel through the Egyptian border and requested refugee status. They say that in Ethiopia, the women were raped and the men were beaten. Most were tortured. Some walked for hundreds of kilometers to escape the country.

Upon arrival in Israel, most were denied refugee status and arrested as illegal aliens. Some have been in jail for the past 18 months. They are asking for the government to release them from jail and permit them to remain in Israel until they can complete applications for refugee status in Canada. Most of the petitioners will not be allowed in Judge Oded Mudrik's courtroom today - court administrators say there is not enough room, so token representation will have to do. The rest plan to spend the day fasting and praying.

The petitioners were forced to flee Ethiopia after the regime change in 1992, because their parents were members of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) outlawed by the new rulers, or because they themselves were suspected of opposing the new regime.

Attorney Yael Katz-Mastbaum, who represents the petitioners, has submitted affidavits from six international experts in support of the petitioners' testimony. The experts write that the situation in Ethiopia has deteriorated in the wake of the elections that took place there this past May.

According to reports by human rights and media organizations, government security forces fatally shot 36 and arrested 3,000 at a demonstration against widespread ballot fraud by the governing party. After the elections, the Ethiopian government permitted its overseas embassies to issue travel permits for its citizens residing abroad - a step the experts interpret as an attempt to repatriate regime opponents like those jailed in Israel. The Ethiopian embassy in Israel has also issued permits for the petitioners, at the request of the Israeli authorities, a move that has led them to fear their deportation is imminent.

According to Donald Levine, a professor of sociology at the University of Chicago who serves as an adviser to the U.S. administration, the regime's persecution of OLF members is well documented, as are the methods the petitioners say were employed against them. Levine believes their fears of returning to Ethiopia are well founded.

Sixty of the petitioners have received sponsorship from the Orthodox Ethiopian Church of Manitoba, which is authorized by the Canadian government to accept refugees. The church vetted their applications, confirmed that they meet the criteria for refugee status and pledged to provide for their needs during their first year in Canada. The remaining petitioners only applied recently and are waiting to hear from the church. A clergyman from the Canadian church visited them in jail yesterday.

Sponsorship by the Canadian organization is a prerequisite for initiating the immigration process and usually ensures that the requests will be approved by Canadian immigration authorities. So far, 25 Ethiopians who infiltrated Israel have received refugee status in Canada through this process.

According to the affidavits filed in court, similar groups of Ethiopian asylum seekers are presently in Norway, Sweden and Switzerland, except that in those countries they are not imprisoned. This past June, the Canadian Council for Refugees passed a resolution condemning Israel for incarcerating the Ethiopians.

Katz-Mastbaum says that approximately 10 months will elapse between the time her clients receive sponsorship from the Canadian church until they are invited for an interview at the Canadian Embassy in Israel and all the paperwork is completed. Embassy officials said the process could take even longer.

The State of Israel agrees, and says it would be preferable for the Ethiopians to return home to await the results of the process rather than to remain jailed in Israel. Advocates at the Hotline for Migrant Workers say that repatriating the petitioners would quash any chance of their emigrating to Canada and that there is no need for them to wait in prison in Israel - they can simply be released.

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