Published: 5 March 2018
Last updated: 4 March 2024
The Population, Immigration and Border Authority recently rejected a request that this community be added to the categories of people who can’t be deported, such as women and children.
Though asylum seekers can raise their sexual orientation or gender identity as an argument against deportation in their pre-deportation hearings it is unlikely to be accepted – Israel has previously refused to accept LGBT identity as grounds for receiving refugee status.
Since 2015, the LGBT Task Force has handled the cases of about 30 LGBT asylum seekers but it believes there are many, possibly even hundreds, more. It’s hard to estimate their numbers accurately since many fear being exposed as gay or lesbian within their own communities, where they are likely to encounter prejudice.
FULL STORY Israel to deport LGBT asylum seekers to Rwanda, Uganda despite likely persecution (Haaretz)
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UN human rights experts say mass expulsion violates international law (Ynet)
Calling the planned expulsion of Eritrean, Sudanese asylum seekers a violation of international law, human rights, refugees rights, UN human rights experts decry the 'discriminatory nature' of the policy aimed at sub-Saharan Africans
Photo: Images of asylum seekers posted on a wall in Tel Aviv (Ynet)
