Jerusalem (AFP) - Israel has illegally coerced almost 7,000 African migrants into returning to their home countries, where some face persecution, Human Rights Watch said in a report published on Tuesday.
"Israel's convoluted legal rules thwart Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers' attempts to secure protection under Israeli and international law," New York-based HRW said in a statement accompanying the 83-page report.
"Israeli authorities have... denied them access to fair and efficient asylum procedures, and used the resulting insecure legal status as a pretext to unlawfully detain or threaten to detain them indefinitely, coercing thousands into leaving."
Israel has come under fierce criticism from rights groups for its immigration policy and treatment of African asylum seekers, particularly over its Holot detention centre where illegal immigrants can be held for up to a year .... http://news.yahoo.com
