Israel Supreme Court limits detention of migrants without charge to a year

• The ruling struck down a portion of the Infiltration Prevention Act that allowed for migrants to be detained for up to 20 months.
• Among the more than 2,500 migrants detained at the Holot detention facility in the Negev, those who have been detained without charge for 12 months or more are to be released in the next 15 days.
• Israel refers to illegal migrants as “infiltrators” and since 2009 has granted asylum requests–mostly from Eritreans, Sudanese, and Congolese–to fewer than 0.15% of those who applied.

“The court made it clear that a policy whose purpose is to break asylum-seekers’ spirit to coerce them to leave Israel is unconstitutional. The judges also criticized the slow pace of examining asylum claims and the abysmally low recognition rate of refugees in Israel.”

Read the full story at the Times of Israel.

(Image Credit: Flash90, via The Times of Israel)