Protest leader Johnny says members of the community are waiting to be able to return home. “Everyone who is here has no future; our future is in Eritrea,” he says. “We want to topple our regime, just like they are doing in other African countries. Not from here, but we want to start here.”

Source: Ha’aretz

Police in Tel Aviv clashed on Saturday with Eritrean protesters, both those who support the current regime and those who oppose it. More than 150 were wounded, as were at least 30 police officers. Violent protests like these have taken place around the world.

A Border Police officer and protesters in Tel Aviv, Saturday.

A Border Police officer and protesters in Tel Aviv, Saturday.Credit: Moti Milrod

By Bar Peleg

Sep 2, 2023 11:48 pm

During the past week, only one thing preoccupied Eritrean asylum seekers in Israel: Saturday’s festival, organized by the Eritrean embassy in Tel Aviv.

Warnings were issued everywhere, here and overseas. Their leaders appealed to the police, the media, and anyone else willing to listen. They warned that blood would be shed and that people would be murdered. They said people would be hurt, including police officers.

To the regret of all sides, they were right. They felt things simmering on the streets and saw what was happening in expatriate communities around the world. They approached the police, who did take some steps in preparation. These were insufficient, however.

Last week, a photo circulated online showing dozens of supporters of Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki’s dictatorial regime outside the center in which the festival was scheduled to take place. All of them wore maroon shirts, their fists held high. The photo was interpreted as a warning to the regime’s opponents not to show up.

Explicit threats were posted on every social media network, and even the application for a license to protest submitted by regime opponents stated that there was a high chance of violence between regime supporters and opponents. Nevertheless, despite the fact that the writing was on the wall in the most obvious words, the police’s intelligence failed.

“We came to Tel Aviv from all over the country. We only want the state’s help,” one of the protest leaders told Haaretz before the event escalated. “We don’t want Israel to help Eritrea’s dictatorship. We’ll stay here until the end. Let them bring horses and dogs, no problem. We’re not afraid of the regime or the police. We won’t leave until this event is canceled. We’ll stay here day and night and die here if necessary.”

Starting early in the morning, buses from Petah Tikva, Gedera, Jerusalem, and Eilat started arriving in south Tel Aviv, even though the festival and the demonstration were set for midday.

“We only wanted to shut down this festival; we won’t let them hold their celebrations. Why are they here, why are they supporting a dictator? The government must do something to separate us. Anyone supporting the dictator shouldn’t be here.” Next to him stood another asylum seeker from Eritrea, who said: “We’ve been here for 15 years, with no status or rights. We haven’t seen our parents all these years because of the dictatorship. Why should they have their party here?”

These two, like around 17,500 other Eritreans, live in Israel with no status, rights, or health care. They work in manual labor and are waiting until they can leave the country. Israel has fully examined only 1,000 requests for asylum from Eritreans. Another 6,000 requests have been reviewed using out-of-date criteria. Another 8,000 requests haven’t been examined at all, including those of these two asylum seekers, who have been here for over a decade without the state having looked into their cases.

Refugee rights organizations have been warning about the situation for years, insisting that the state review these requests for asylum. According to estimates, the number of regime supporters is very low when countries review asylum requests by Eritreans. The Population and Immigration Authority doesn’t distinguish between regime supporters and opponents.

“Supporters lied and are here under false pretenses,” according to a prominent community activist identified as Johnny. “They blended in with us, but they are for the dictator. If they like the regime there, why are they here? They hurt us with their incitement on social media, while we fight for our community and our rights.”

According to researchers, human rights groups, and sources within the community of asylum seekers, the Eritrean government operates a violent network of secret agents and tax collectors among refugee communities around the world. The goal is to intimidate people who fled the country.

In 2018, Amnesty International published a comprehensive survey of the Eritrean government’s oppression of expatriate communities worldwide. Community sources say festivals are used as part of a chain of fund-raising events among expat communities, with the funds intended to bolster the dictatorship.

The hall in which the Eritrean embassy's event was slated to take place, Saturday.

“Today’s violent events in Tel Aviv, in which asylum seekers disrupted an event held by agents of the dictatorship, are first and foremost a rising up of a vulnerable community against their oppressors and persecutors,” says Guli Dolev-Hashiloni, who researches the Eritrean community in Israel.

“It’s not clear why Israel allows the embassy’s provocateurs to operate here. Perhaps Israel is afraid to deal with a handful of agents because this would force it to recognize the fact that the vast majority of the Eritreans here are indeed refugees, which requires granting them extensive rights that are currently denied to them.”

The violence began at around 11:00 A.M. when demonstrators broke through police cordons. Within minutes, the area became a battleground, with extensive throwing of stones and wooden boards. The police responded with stun grenades, sponge-tipped bullets, and live gunfire – first shooting in the air, and then at demonstrators.

The event followed similar ones in other countries. Last month, eight Eritreans were wounded, one of them seriously, in Toronto. After hours of rioting, a festival there was canceled. In Stockholm, more than 50 people were wounded, with dozens of the some 1,000 protesters arrested. In Germany, the BBC reported, hundreds of policemen using clubs and tear gas arrested 100 people protesting a similar festival. Twenty-six policemen were wounded. The riot in Tel Aviv on Saturday eclipsed these.

The demonstrators in Tel Aviv wore light-blue shirts carrying the photo of Samra Hadush, an Eritrean opponent of the regime who was stabbed in the eye during a demonstration in Stockholm. Hadush spent some time in Israel, which is why asylum seekers in Israel have turned him into a symbol of their struggle.

For many in this community, the fact that the police approved the embassy’s event – in contrast with the U.K., where it was canceled following violent incidents elsewhere – indicates support for the dictatorial regime.

“Israel supports the dictatorship. It’s stepping all over us,” says Salim, another demonstrator whose asylum request hasn’t been reviewed. “We want to return to our country, but we want to remove the dictatorship. We have a life there. Just like in Israel, there is a democracy. With people shouting ‘democracy’ in the streets, we also want this,” she says. Salim and a few other women tried to stand up to the police during the demonstration, crying as they and others raised their hands over their heads.

The second round of violence started near Levinsky Park. Opponents of the regime gathered there at lunchtime, eating injera flatbread. They heard that regime supporters were heading their way from the south and confronted them, wielding sticks and stones. The park, which even on ordinary days has few pleasant aspects, looked like a battlefield.

The riot spread into the adjacent neighborhood of Neve Sha’anan, with demonstrators knocking down fences and throwing stones. The police responded by firing sponge-tipped bullets. Later, the riots spread toward Allenby Street and the city’s center. At their end, with demonstrators standing on the road, an asylum seeker called Girma arrived, speaking to the media through a megaphone. “Talk to us, ask us. We’ll tell you why we are demonstrating,” he said.

“For 30 years, there’s been a dictator in Eritrea, unwilling to depart,” Girma says. “Six million people have no money for food and drink. That’s why we’re here, having come through the Sinai Desert. Show me one Israeli who can walk for almost two months. The ones holding a party are supporters of the dictatorship.

“We aren’t willing for there to be a party for that dictator. We don’t want him. If the party is canceled, we’ll leave. We have a lot of people who’ve been treated violently and no one is helping them. We’ve been here for 15 years without the right to live as human beings, without any help.”

Protest leader Johnny says members of the community are waiting to be able to return home. “Everyone who is here has no future; our future is in Eritrea,” he says. “We want to topple our regime, just like they are doing in other African countries. Not from here, but we want to start here.”