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A second group of asylum seekers has to report to Holot facility

Following the first date of summons to the Holot internment camp on Sunday, dozens more asylum seekers will have to report to Holot facility tomorrow (29.1). The pickup point in Tel Aviv remains at 51 Igal Alon St, 10:00 AM. A demonstration of Israeli activist against this incarceration is set to start at 9:30 AM.

During February, every Sunday and Wednesday there will be new groups of asylum-seekers that will have to report to that location and be taken in buses to the Holot camp. So far, 1,800 asylum seekers have been ordered to report to Holot in the next couple of months.

Holot facility, which was housed with asylum seekers following the passing of the new amendment to the Anti-Infiltration Law by the Knesset in December 2013, can hold a maximum of 3,300 people. Under the new law, the asylum-seekers will be held there indefinitely with no judicial review of their detention. About 300 people are currently detained there at the moment. The detainees are reporting that they do not receive enough food; they lack adequate medical care and s sense of great despair prevails among them. This is exactly the purpose of the law, as stated by the Minister of Interior and other officials – to drive the detainees into despair, thus pressuring them to “agree” to be deported to their homelands to which they cannot be deported by force due to the high likelihood that they will be detained, tortured and even killed there.

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