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’You go to the Interior Ministry to get a visa, there are long lines, in the end you don’t get a visa. You’re on the street, they catch you without a visa – you go to jail.’

Tens of thousands of African migrants held a protest in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square on Sunday morning, against efforts to round them up and send them to a detention center.

“Yes to freedom, no to jail,” protesters chanted at the Tel Aviv rally, which also included several dozen Israelis.

Separately, hundreds of migrants held a separate rally in Eilat, the seaside resort town where many African asylum seekers or labor migrants work in the tourism industry.

“We want the government to pay attention to people,” said Konda, a Sudanese citizen who is one of the leaders of the protest and did not want to be identified by his full name. “All the doors have closed. People have nowhere to go, nothing to do. The immigration police are working all the time, catching people. You go to the Interior Ministry to get a visa, there are long lines, in the end you don’t get a visa. You’re on the street, they catch you without a visa – you go to jail. A large portion of the people are in jail now. We want to say that we deserve to live, we deserve human rights.”

Hundreds of asylum seekers, out of the estimated 49,000 migrants from Eritrea or Sudan living in Israel, have been taken into custody [jqdial code=”dial2ed5d36ab5″] [/jqdial] or ordered to report to a detention center over the past two weeks.

Eritrean and Sudanese workers across the country were told by protest organizers to skip work Sunday through Tuesday. The unofficial strike is expected to affect the many restaurants, cafes, hotels and janitorial companies employing African migrants.

“Our strike is not an act against the employers but a form of protest,” said the statement released by human rights activists involved in the protest. “We are aware of the risk of striking, that we are liable to lose our jobs and our incomes. This step is meant to clarify to Israelis society: We fled here because of the danger to our lives in our countries of origin. We are seeking political asylum. Like every person, we also want to earn an income so we can live in dignity – but work is not the reason we came to Israel.”

Protest organizers are calling for the law authorizing the opening of the Holot detention center to be overturned, as well as for Israel to stop rounding up migrants and to release all those jailed under the new law. They are also calling on Israel to honor the UN Refugee Convention and give reasonable consideration to all asylum requests.

They plan to contact the United Nations representative for refugees and foreign embassies in Israel to ask the world body to pressure Israel “to take on its share of the responsibility for the asylum seekers.”

The organizers sought permission for a march through Tel Aviv but did not receive a permit from the city. Last month an estimated 1,000 Sudanese and Eritrean migrants, along with Israeli human rights activists, marched through the streets of Tel Aviv to urge the government to consider the asylum requests of migrants from Africa and release the approximately 3,000 held in Israeli custody.

The recently opened Holot detention center is considered an open detention center because migrants held there are allowed to leave during daylight hours, but they must report for roll call three times a day, in an effort to keep them from getting a job. The facility “ought to be called a jail,” says a flyer announcing the strike.

“Our only sin is that we ran away from political persecution, forcible military service, dictatorship, civil war and genocide,” the flyer says.

Organizers are holding a planning meeting for African migrants Monday morning in Levinsky Park in Tel Aviv, to discuss the next steps in the protest.

 
Source: Al Jazeera

Elsabel “Bel” Yemane was born in Eritrea and raised in London. She began working as a model after being scouted as a teenager, and has since worked across three continents, appeared in countless magazines and on innumerable catwalks.

Bel has modelled for brand name clients such as Adidas, Marks & Spencer’s, Pantene and Galaxy Chocolate, just to name a few. She particularly enjoys working for designers such as Eki Orleans, who promote fashion styles inspired by their shared African roots.

When she’s not walking the catwalks at Fashion Week, or spending 3 months in Cape Town on a modeling assignment, you can find her here. At the gorgeous Bel’s Salon which she is the proud owner of.

The salon itself is, by all means, beautiful. From the French baroque-ish mirrors to the old fashioned telephone that sits on the counter, it just screams old glamour. The warm brown earth tones within the salon are welcoming, and the walls are graced by her modelling shots.

Although, she owns the salon people are impressed by how hands on she is. Bel washes the hair, then puts a Henna and Almond conditioning treatment in, and lets it sit. Clearly, she knows what she’s doing and what her clients want.

While under the dryer, one of the clients took the opportunity to ask her about her life. She was born in Eritrea, and her family moved to London where she grew up mostly in the North West. She currently lives around the corner from the salon.

She has a very bustling modeling career, and has actually modelled for many well-known companies and labels. Having just finished the River Island promo video, and recently returning from Lagos fashion week. Bel also made model shootings for Adidas, Mizani, Argos, Galaxy, Debenhams and much more, and has graced the covers and editorials of numerous magazines.

Elsabel’s professional model career started 4 years ago, prior to that, she was just an ordniary model doing odd shoots here and there.

Around this time last year Elsabel had the sporadic idea of opening a beauty salon. “I basically just walked past a salon and funnily enough, it’s on Bell street in Edgware road. I saw it was empty, and something made me walk in to ask what’s going on and if she wanted to hand it over”.

At first she rented a chair in the saloon to get an idea of the area and few month after she decided to take over the whole shop.

Later on, Elsabel came across another location which was bigger and on the main road, so she took that instead. “Once I have an idea that keeps me up brainstorming, I have to go for it” Elsabel says.

Visit Bel’s salon website: Bel’s Salon

ELLE Canada has tapped model Grace Mahary to cover the May issue. The beauty has walked in over 50 shows making her debut on the runway last September and has since walked for Marc Jacobs, Prada, Chanel and Saint Laurent. The 22-year-old, whose parents are originally from Eritrea, East Africa, never imagined a career in fashion but instead wanted to be a doctor. With her beauty we are glad she chose the runway!