Wachsender Widerstand in Israel gegen Zwangsabschiebung afrikanischer Flüchtlinge
Psychologists have joined the growing ranks of professionals, academics and religious figures urging the Israeli government to nix a plan to expel tens of thousands of asylum seekers or announcing they would actively work to foil forced deportations.
Over the last week, demonstrations have been staged and protests have mounted after reports emerged that the government was planning to begin deporting refugees in the next weeks, having signed agreements with Rwanda and Uganda to take in some 35,000 refugees who have reached Israel over the last few years, mainly from Eritrea and Sudan. (...)
The signatories to the letter included dozens of senior hospital managers, department heads and other medical professionals, including nurses and social workers. They wrote that they recoil from the idea that, instead of taking the asylum seekers in with the view that they are victims “who have come to us in their flight from genocide, torture, violence and rape,” the country was “sentencing them to continued harm.” They also criticized the government’s plans for allegedly not providing an exception for the sick, the weak and the most vulnerable.
But it’s not only health professionals who have come out against the government’s plans.
A group of El Al pilots declared on Facebook they would not fly African asylum seekers if they were being forcefully deported. El Al does not fly to Rwanda and Uganda, so their refusal would not affect the expulsions, which are usually conducted through foreign airlines from Jordan or Tukey.
However, the initial handful of pilots who came out against the plan were joined on Wednesday by nearly 150 flight crew members who took out a front-page ad in Haaretz, condemning the forced transfers and calling on all airlines not to cooperate with them.