Israel sends 150 protesting African migrants back to jail

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Israeli police on Tuesday sent back to custody about 150 African migrants who had abandoned a desert detention centre in protest against a new law allowing them to be kept there indefinitely.

Aided by rights groups, the migrants had travelled to Jerusalem to demonstrate outside the Israeli parliament, which last week passed a law allowing authorities to hold illegal migrants in an "open facility" until they leave the country.  The Israeli government says that most of the 50,000 African migrants, mostly Sudanese and Eritrean, who have since 2006 crossed over the Egyptian border into its territory, are illegal job-seekers who threaten the Jewish state's social makeup.
Reuters