Tel Aviv police couldn't have driven home the message of Israeli refugee play “One Strong Black” any harder if they'd been in the cast themselves.
On Thursday evening, according to various refugee aid organizations in Israel, 30-year-old Darfuri asylum seeker Babaker “Babi” Ibrahim — ” target=”_blank”>the Garden Library, the group behind the play, said that before cops pinned the bicycle theft on Ibrahim, they first tried to nab him for possessing a stolen phone (he had the receipt) and an expired visa (he showed them his valid one). And when they finally landed on the bicycle charges, said Feder, police used his new status as a suspected criminal to then strip him of his visa at the Ministry of Interior and lock him up under Israel's infamous, year-old ” target=”_blank”>Jerusalem Post, Ibrahim also played a second role as a visa agent at the Ministry of Interior (and the irony grows):
In one of the opening scenes of the play, [actress Musa Salkoya], along with several others, waits patiently to apply for a visa at the Ministry of Interior. The visa agent, portrayed brilliantly by 29-year-old Babi Ibrahim, is more interested in having an obnoxious cell phone conversation with a friend than helping anyone waiting in line.
Just like that, the gap between the Israeli experience, and the Sudanese experience was suddenly bridged. Who among us hasn’t dealt with some frustrating form of Israeli bureaucracy, or a grocer who wouldn’t hang up the phone to assist us? Sudanese, Eritreans and Israelis found themselves laughing side by side—every member of the audience was decidedly in on the inside joke.
The play was conducted in Hebrew to reach a wider audience. And because Ibrahim “has such great Hebrew, he played all the roles in Israeli bureacracy,” said Feder.
“We really hope this has nothing to do with the show,” he said of Thursday's arrest. However, Feder and other activists are highly suspicious that police were aware of Ibrahim's role in the play, given the absurdly ironic, life-imitating art circumstances of the arrest — and the fact that, according to Feder, the policeman who arrested Ibrahim “called him by a nickname that we only use in the theater group.”
The suspect, though his bicycle charges have reportedly been dropped, now faces indefinite imprisonment in ” target=”_blank”>Human Rights Watch.
The Tel Aviv Police Department didn't answer calls for comment, but did release this statement to ” target=”_blank”>They rallied outside Attorney General Weinstein's mansion in Herzliya over the weekend, enraged that the recently expanded Anti-Infiltration Law had so soon been used to put away one of the most peace-loving, solution-oriented asylum seekers in Tel Aviv. “He's such a great person, with a will to start a dialogue,” said Feder.