Last update - 00:00 19/11/2006
Court delays foreign laborers' release over disappearance of woman
By Ruth Sinai, Haaretz Correspondent
A court has decided to release one at a time a group of female foreign laborers being held in custody on the condition that the departure of the last woman released is confirmed.
The first woman subjected to this system was released from the Tsohar immigration facility and left Israel after two weeks as planned.
Final authorization of her departure took another two weeks to establish because her name did not show up on the immigration office's computers and a special confirmation from the airline had to be obtained.
Last week a second woman was released and she is expected to leave over the next few days.
A similar group of women waiting to be released from Ma'asiyahu jail, however, were not as fortunate. The first woman was released and disappeared without a trace, and the court is refusing to release any more of the woman.
"They are simply being abused," Ami Sa'ar, who works for an organization that assists foreign laborers, said. Sa'ar claims that even if the missing woman eventually leaves Israel the release of the rest of the group will be held up for months.
The woman originally asked authorities not to imprint their passports with a deportation stamp so that they could reenter Kenya or Ethiopia without being questioned.
Judge Dan Liberti agreed to their request on condition that the current system be implemented.
"In a picturesque way, everyone in this room should see themselves as beads in a necklace," Liberti ruled. "From this day on you should know that you are each responsible for each other."