7-06-07, 9:38 am

The Kadima-led government of Israel is implementing a plan to block African refugees from entering Israel and forcing those inside the country to return to Africa, according to a recent news report at , a UN-affiliated news website.

According to the plan released earlier this week, African refugees, estimated at about 1,400 just in recent months, including about 1,000 from Sudan, will be deported back through Egypt. Hundreds of asylum seekers from countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Ivory Coast are also expected to be forcibly expelled.

Israeli military forces are under orders to arrest those who violate this order and to detain those who cannot be immediately returned.

The refugees will be returned to Africa through Egypt without guarantees for their safety, raising serious concerns for Israeli human rights workers who have protested the government's new policy.

Some human rights advocates indicated that Egypt is on record as forcing asylum seekers and immigrants to return to their countries of origin without concern for their well-being or for the treatment they may receive there.

Many have been imprisoned or have died since returning to their country of origin from Egypt.

Amnesty International, too, has expressed concern that the decision is too sweeping and will not take the long-term protection of asylum seekers into consideration.

According to the IRIN report, Sudanese immigrants living in Egypt have also complained of job discrimination and inadequate access to health care.

But, according to Israeli human rights groups, the Israeli government has a poor record on fair treatment for African asylum seekers.

The Israel-based tex (PHR) has long called on the Israeli government fulfill its 'moral obligation to act and to make certain that those requesting protection in the country will indeed receive it and will not find their death in the place they expected would protect their lives.'

In 2006, PHR also sharply criticized the Israeli government for mistreating Sudanese refugees, especially from Darfur. 'Many of those fleeing for their lives in the hope of finding protection in Israel,' tex, 'ultimately are treated in humiliating and violent manners, under the pretext that they present a security risk to Israel.'

The latest announcements about the Israeli government's policy also explicitly requires the forced deportation of refugees of the genocide and war crimes in Darfur. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government did hold out the possibility that at some point in the future 'a small portion' of Darfurian refugees would be assisted 'only after the full blocking of infiltrations is assured.'

This latest African refugee policy statement by Olmert's government, according to the IRIN report, also blamed African immigrants and refugees for the spread of infectious diseases.

Miki Bavli, a former Israeli diplomat and now the head of UNHCR in Tel Aviv, appeared to justify the Israeli government's policy and to deny the validity of the complaints about Egypt's record on human rights by implying that refugees didn't have the right to select the country from which they sought asylum.

According to the IRIN report, Bavli seemed to accuse African refugees in Israel of 'shopping' for the 'most comfortable state' in which to seek asylum.

How Does Israel's Policy on African Refugees Compare to the US?

The Israeli policy on African asylum seekers mirrors the Bush administration's own de facto immigration and refugee policy regarding Africa.

The Bush administration has granted refugee status to as few as three Darfurians between 2003 and May 2007, despite having declared the atrocities in Darfur to be genocide in 2004, according to a report on tex!.

In fact, about 80% of all African refugees granted asylum in the US have come from countries other than Sudan, the large bulk coming from Somalia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ethiopia, and Egypt, all with strong economic, political, or military ties to the US.

Despite mass atrocities in different parts of the continent that have displaced millions and have seen war crimes on a scale unseen since World War 2, only about 81,000 African refugees have been granted asylum in the US between 2002 and 2006.

Asylum has been granted to only hundreds of people fleeing political violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo, or Cote d'Ivoire.

Africans granted legal immigration status (permanent resident status) totaled a mere 7 percent of all legal immigrants arriving in the US between 2002 and 2006, or about half of legal immigrants from Europe, according to data compiled at the tex.

--Joel Wendland can be reached at