Israel using technicality to deport Eritrean asylum-seekers to Ethiopia
Under UN rules, Eritreans are automatically entitled to asylum, whereas
Ethiopians have no such collective asylum right.
By Talila Nesher
24.10.11
The Interior Ministry is deporting Eritrean asylum-seekers to Ethiopia even
though it admits it cannot guarantee their safety there, a ministry document
obtained by Haaretz shows.
Under UN rules, Eritreans are automatically entitled to asylum, whereas
Ethiopians have no such collective asylum right. In 2003, however, Ethiopia
passed a law granting citizenship to anyone whose mother or father was an
Ethiopian citizen. That provision applies to many Eritreans, since Eritrea
split off from Ethiopia in 1993.
The ministry's Population Authority has therefore been deporting some
Eritreans to Ethiopia on the grounds that they could obtain citizenship
there. Yet the document obtained by Haaretz casts doubt on whether the new
law is really being applied, and consequently, on whether Eritreans will
really be safe there.
The interior and foreign ministries are currently investigating this issue,
but the Population Authority hasn't informed the courts of this when seeking
permission to deport Eritreans to Ethiopia.
In July, the ministry's advisory committee on refugees met and discussed the
2003 law and its subsidiary legislation. But according to the minutes of
this meeting, the option of Eritreans obtaining Ethiopian citizenship is
currently only "theoretical," and the interior and foreign ministries are
still trying "to understand whether these laws are being applied."
The minutes also quote Danny Hass, head of the Interior Ministry's research
department, as saying, "this is a sensitive issue due to the war between
Ethiopia and Eritrea, and it's hard to get answers about what happens to
those refugees who return once they land at the airport."
Yet none of this is mentioned in the briefs the ministry files in court. In
response to one Eritrean's petition against his deportation, for instance,
the ministry wrote simply that "even if the petitioner lost his Ethiopian
citizenship at some point, he can, under Article 3 of the new Ethiopian
citizenship law, reacquire Ethiopian citizenship if one of his parents (in
this case, the petitioner's mother ) is Ethiopian."
Yonatan Berman, outgoing legal advisor for the Hotline for Migrant Workers
and one of the attorneys representing that petitioner, said, "the minutes
constitute evidence that the Interior Ministry is concealing information
that could have led to different conclusions about the legal possibility of
deporting people."
Attorney Yuval Livnat of Tel Aviv University's refugee rights clinic termed
the minutes "extremely disturbing. The Interior Ministry tells the courts
over and over that Ethiopians of Eritrean origin can return to Ethiopia
without fear, but in private it admits there's no certainty regarding the
treatment that awaits them."
In another case, Judge Rami Amir noted two other problems with the
ministry's position. First, he said, neither the Justice Ministry's
international department nor any expert on Ethiopian law has confirmed that
the new law means what the Interior Ministry says it does. Moreover, another
article in the law states that anyone with citizenship in another country
shall be viewed as if he had given up his Ethiopian citizenship, unless he
waives his foreign citizenship within a year of reaching his majority. That
would seem to preclude most Eritrean asylum-seekers from acquiring Ethiopian
citizenship under this law.
The Interior Ministry responded that it stands by its right to deport any
Eritrean who has or could acquire citizenship in any other country,
including Ethiopia. The fact that an asylum seeker also has Eritrean
citizenship "does not entitle him to immunity" from deportation, it said.
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Received on Mon Oct 24 2011 - 08:40:04 EDT