It was bound to happen once “>Holot, Israel's “open” desert prison for “illegal infiltrators,” have been pushing back against the rule of the Israeli Population, Immigration and Border Authority (PIBA).
From the morning of June 16 until now, all 2,300 prisoners have refused to show up for their thrice-daily check-ins — a ritual which prevents them from leaving the jail's desolate premises, and ensures they are stuck in lines for hours each day.
(“Lines to check in, lines to check out,” “>marching down Holot's dusty roads and “>torture en route to Israel, protesting in the middle of the Negev — with no one to hear them but prison workers — have made the rounds on social media. But they've been partly overshadowed by renewed fury over Israel's grip on the West Bank and Gaza, as soldiers
Musa explained to me that those African asylum seekers who haven't already “>recently interviewed a young Israeli woman named Mai Liberkaz, the longtime girlfriend of a Sudanese asylum seeker in Israel. “The atmosphere has changed drastically in the last few years,” she said in her video interview.
“Before,” she said, “you would walk down the street and see African people full of life. Now, you walk down the street where Africans live and you see disappointment. And that's if you see them at all, if they're not hiding out in their homes.”
Musa spoke of a similar soul drain in his former neighborhood. “Tel Aviv is not like before,” he said. “Tel Aviv is like Holot.”
My friend decided to head back down to the Negev earlier than expected on Monday, to regroup with his fellow protesters. “We are all leaders,” he reiterated before he left, and hinted that Israel's incarcerated asylum seekers would be taking more drastic (still peaceful) measures in the coming days. And really, they don't have too much left to lose.
A prison in the middle of nowhere with a gate that opens a few hours each day is still a prison “>June 19, 2014
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