The anti-deportation photographic project
Activists paper Tel Aviv's streets with photos of African migrants marked for deportation
Ahead of rally to be held Saturday evening, activists put up across Tel Aviv hundreds of photos of Eritrean, Sudanese migrants marked for deportation; asylum seeker photographed for project: 'We want Israelis to know we're truly refugees who escaped to save our lives. Israeli government is lying when it says we're work migrants.'
Hundreds of portraits of Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers who were targeted for expulsion
were hung around Tel Aviv Friday night. The hanging of photos is the culmination of a weeks' long project by a group of independent photographers, who documented more than 500 asylum seekers.
Photographs—by Haim Schwarczenberg, Oren Ziv and others—were hung outside the new Central Bus Station and around Herzl, Nachlat Binyamin and Allenby Streets, as well as elsewhere.
Most of the asylum seekers whose photos were taken for the project are currently detained at the southern Holot facility, set to close at the end of next month as part of the program to expel African migrants from Israel.
Activists putting up photos of migrants across Tel Aviv
Some of those photographed were transferred from Saharonim prison to Holot just this week, after they made known their refusal to consent to deportation to Rwanda.
Some 500 asylum seekers were photographed for the project
The exhibit will also be featured at an anti-expulsion rally, to be held Saturday in south Tel Aviv.
"While the government is sending refugees to incarceration at Holot and Saharonim and to expulsion to third countries, the project wishes to give form to the people Israel wishes to make disappear from public discourse," a message put out on behalf of the photographers said.
"Through these photographs, we wish to remind (Israelis) that the refugees are seeking asylum and have instead received prison. Photos seek to remind the public, as well as decision makers, that even if they are sent to indefinite detention, the reason that brought them to Israel will not be forgotten: to seek asylum," the message concluded.
Michael, an asylum seeker who participated in the project, said, "We wish for the people of Israel—and the world—to know that we are denied visas and thrown in jail, but we're not going to Uganda or Rwanda—we will stay in prison, although I hope that won't happen.
"We want them to know we're truly refugees and that we escaped to save our lives. The Israeli government is lying when it says we're work migrants."
Preparations for the rally, to be held starting 8:30pm in southern Tel Aviv, are almost complete. The movement orchestrating the rally, known as "South Tel Aviv Against Deportation", is expecting thousands to flock to the area to attend from across Israel in a bid to display widespread opposition to the Knesset's approval of the deportation plan two months ago.
The demonstration will be held throughout Levinsky Street and roads around it will be closed starting 3pm. Journalist Merav Betito will host the rally, where south Tel Aviv residents, asylum seekers, author Sami Shalom Chetrit, social activist Shula Mula and other public figures are expected to speak. Musicians Omer Lev and Karolina will perform onstage.
File photo. an anti-expulsion rally will be held in Tel Aviv Saturday evening (Photo: Motti Kimchi)
South Tel Aviv has been seriously affected by the wave of illegal migration in recent years that swept through Israel's once-porous southern border.
In an effort to counter the demonstration, crowds are planning to assemble from the other side of the camp, led by "South Tel Aviv Liberation Front" under the campaign banner of "Remembering Esther Galili," a victim whose murder came to symbolize anger over the migrants' presence and galvanize protesters into action.
