Israeli: Detention center for Africans a 'prison'

FILE - In this Monday, Aug. 20, 2007 file photo, a Sudanese refugee family sit on the ground surrounded by Israeli army soldiers after they crossed illegally from Egypt into Israel. Hundreds of African migrants are languishing in a secretive desert detention center in southern Israel, where families may only meet once a week and where women and children sleep in a prison-like compound, according to witnesses who paid a rare visit to the site. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit, File)

JERUSALEM (AP) — Hundreds of African migrants are languishing in a desert detention center in southern Israel, where families may only meet once a week and where women and children sleep in a prison-like compound, according to lawmakers who caught a rare glimpse.

The visit to Sahronim center by a parliamentary delegation has allowed a look into the facility that plays a key role in Israel's attempt to stem the tide of thousands of African migrants who have crossed the long desert border with Egypt to the Jewish state in recent years.

"It's not a camp. It's a prison," said Michael Rozin, an opposition lawmaker with the dovish Meretz party. "You have guards. You are not free do what you want. These people are not criminals. Their crime is asking for a better life."

Israel, like other developed countries in Europe and around the Mediterranean, is a magnet for asylum seekers and economic migrants. Though the physical conditions at the Israeli detention camp appear harsh, large numbers of refugees face much worse around the region.

Most of the 55,000 African migrants who made it to Israel over the past decade claim they were escaping forced, open-ended conscription in Eritrea or war in Sudan. Critics counter that most are job seekers attracted to Israel's wealthy economy and plentiful jobs in hotels, restaurants and cleaning.

As their numbers swelled, they began to be seen as a threat to Israel's Jewish character. Most live in Tel Aviv slums, while their legal status remains in limbo. The government is trying to expel some and find alternative refuge for others.

Over the past year, Israel mostly halted the influx with a fence along the Egyptian border.

Those who have trickled in since, some 1,600 people, have been sent to Sahronim in the Negev desert, roughly an hour's drive from the city of Beersheba.

Israeli authorities say a detention facility discourages migrants by denying them a livelihood, and claim conditions at Sahronim are adequate.

"There is no doubt one of the reasons we had such a flow of illegal economic migrants into Israel was because the economy was such a magnet," said Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev. "It was important for us to deal with that magnet."

Lawmaker Rozin said detaining migrants in prison-style facilities is inhumane, even though she and other advocates said they are not mistreated, and they receive adequate medical care and food.

Prison authorities allow few visitors, and reporters are banned. Lawmakers are allowed to request visits.

Many of the 1,400 men live in tents holding about 10 people each. Fences separate them from the 200 women and some 11 children, housed in a low-slung building around a courtyard. Families are allowed to meet only on Thursdays for several hours, though they can request more time.

Another section holds migrants who are convicted felons or who are suspected of committing a felony, Rozin said.

The children have a kindergarten and adults may take courses, she said. They are counted every day by guards and barred from leaving, underscoring the sense of imprisonment, she said.

One woman who was released to a shelter in February after eight months in Sahronim described a bleak existence.

"The cells have steel doors," the woman, whose name was redacted, said in testimony to the advocacy group, Hotline for Migrant Workers. She said women slept 10 to a room in bunk beds. "Sometimes in the morning a little light comes in, but one cannot feel the sun."

A video smuggled out of Sahronim by a member of the lawmakers' delegation this week and given to Israeli media showed men standing behind fences.

"Prison, prison, prison, all the time," said one man who said he'd been there for 15 months but did not give his name. One woman said her children had nothing to do beyond two hours of daily activity.

Israel's policy can be compared to that of European countries. In France, officials expel 30,000 migrants each year, and authorities search immigrant neighborhoods to find others. In 2011, over 50,000 migrants sought asylum in France; only about one-fifth of the applications were granted. Countries like Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Italy, which face the largest waves of migrants, also hold them in crowded detention centers that are widely criticized by rights groups.

For decades in Europe, incarceration has been a politically popular move as communities often feel overwhelmed by culturally different immigrants, often mostly young men.

In the region, Lebanon and Jordan have each absorbed some half million Syrian refugees fleeing the civil war in their country. In Jordan, many live in miserable desert refugee camps near the border.

In Israel, only 136 people have left Sahronim since last year, said Sigal Rozen of the Hotline for Migrant Workers.

Women identified as trafficking victims are sent to shelters. Egyptian smugglers often torture or rape women on their journeys.

African migrants designated as refugees may be released, but advocates say Israel has dragged its feet on thousands of refugee applications it has received. It has ruled on just 17 cases, rejecting them all.

Israel cannot deport Eritreans, who make up the bulk of African migrants, because they risk persecution by their government. They can be held for up to three years, but some have left following court petitions, Rozen said.

It also doesn't deport Sudanese migrants, because Sudan is an enemy state. Advocates said Sudanese migrants are expected to stay in Sahronim, under pressure to leave to third countries.

In recent months, officials quietly repatriated hundreds of migrants to newly independent south Sudan. Also, early this month, Israel said it found a third country that agreed to accept African migrants. It won't identify the country, and it's unclear when anyone will be transferred.

About 530 Sudanese men have volunteered to accept Israeli financial assistance to be deported from Sahronim, according to Sara Robinson of Amnesty International Israel. Robinson said they are harassed into going home via third countries that may be less welcoming or even dangerous.

"The deportations can't be considered voluntary," said Robinson. "If they were held in detention, and they can be held indefinitely, and that's your other option, we have serious concern about their free consent."

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Associated Press writers Angela Charlton in Paris, Paul Schemm in Rabat, Morocco, and Jamal Halaby in Amman, Jordan.

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Russia defiant as U.S. raises pressure over Snowden

By Lidia Kelly and James Pomfret

MOSCOW/HONG KONG (Reuters) - Washington pressed Moscow on Monday to do all in its power to expel former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden before he gets the chance to take an expected flight to Cuba to evade prosecution in the United States for espionage.

Snowden, whose exposure of secret U.S. government surveillance raised questions about Washington's intrusion into private lives, was allowed to leave Hong Kong on Sunday after Washington had asked the Chinese territory to arrest him.

His decision to fly to Russia, which like China challenges U.S. dominance of global diplomacy, is another embarrassment to President Barack Obama who has tried to "reset" ties with Moscow and build a partnership with Beijing.

The White House said it expected the Russian government to send Snowden back to the United States and lodged "strong objections" to Hong Kong and China for letting him go.

"We expect the Russian government to look at all options available to expel Mr Snowden back to the U.S. to face justice for the crimes with which he is charged," said Caitlin Hayden, spokeswoman for the National Security Council.

The Kremlin and the Russian government did not immediately comment. But Russian officials were defiant, saying Moscow had no obligation to cooperate with Washington after it passed the so-called Magnitsky law, which can impose a visa ban and asset freeze on Russian officials accused of human rights violations.

"Ties are in a rather complicated phase and when ties are in such a phase, when one country undertakes hostile action against another, why should the United States expect restraint and understanding from Russia?" said Alexei Pushkov, the head of the foreign affairs committee in the lower house of parliament.

Pushkov does not speak for the Kremlin and is not a policy maker, but is an ally of President Vladimir Putin.

The lawmaker suggested Russia could consider granting asylum for Snowden if he required it, but it looked as if he would prefer to go to "other countries like Venezuela or Ecuador".

Colorado school discriminated against transgender girl: report

By Keith Coffman

DENVER (Reuters) - A Colorado school district discriminated against a 6-year-old transgender girl when it barred her from using the girls' lavatory, according to a report by the state's civil rights division released by the family's attorney on Sunday.

Coy Mathis, who was born male but has identified as a female since an early age, attended Eagleside Elementary School, south of Colorado Springs, as a girl since kindergarten.

She was allowed to use the girls' restroom until late 2012, when the principal informed the parents that Coy would have to use the boys' restroom or a gender-neutral staff lavatory.

Her parents withdrew Coy from the school. In February, they filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Division.

The division's report, signed by its director, Steven Chavez, said the Fountain-Fort Carson School District violated a state law that extends protections to transgender people.

"Given the evolving research into the development of transgender persons, compartmentalizing a child as a boy or girl solely based on their visible anatomy is a simplistic approach to a difficult and complex issue," the report said.

The report criticized school officials for forcing Coy to "disregard her identity" when using the bathroom.

"It also deprived her of the social interaction and bonding that commonly occurs in girls' restrooms during these formative years, i.e., talking, sharing and laughter," the report said.

Michael Silverman, executive director of the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, which filed the complaint, said, "this ruling sends a loud and clear message that transgender students may not be targeted for discrimination and that they must be treated equally in school."

A lawyer for the school district could not be immediately reached for comment.

In a statement issued at the time the case surfaced, the district said the family was unwilling to meet with school officials to discuss "reasonable proposals" to resolve the dispute.

"The parents consistently indicated ... that they would file a discrimination charge if the district did not completely acquiesce to their demands," the statement said.

The school district can appeal the report's findings, Silverman said, but he said he hoped that school officials would accept the findings.

The Mathis family has moved to the Denver area, but Silverman said the ruling should serve as a model for schools nationwide on how to deal with transgender students.

The girl's mother, Kathryn Mathis, who has home-schooled her daughter since the dispute arose, said Coy is eager to return to school.

"All we ever wanted was for Coy's school to treat her the same as other little girls," she said. "We are extremely happy that she now will be treated equally."

(Reporting by Keith Coffman; Editing by Mary Wisniewski and Stacey Joyce)

Analysis: For Obama, a world of Snowden troubles

By Warren Strobel and Paul Eckert

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Since his first day in office, President Barack Obama's foreign policy has rested on outreach: resetting ties with Russia, building a partnership with China and offering a fresh start with antagonistic leaders from Iran to Venezuela.

But the global travels on Sunday of former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowdenhighlight the limits of that approach. Leaders Obama has wooed - and met recently - were willing to snub the American president.

The cocky defiance by so-called "non-state actors" - Snowden himself and the anti-secrecy group, WikiLeaks, completes the picture of a world less willing than ever to bend to U.S. prescriptions of right and wrong.

Snowden flew out of Hong Kong, the semi-autonomous Chinese territory, early on Sunday after Hong Kong authorities rebuffed a U.S. request to detain him pending extradition to the United States for trial. Snowden has acknowledged leaking details of highly classified NSA surveillance programs.

Beijing may merely have wished to get rid of a potential irritant in its multifaceted relationship with Washington. But Snowden's next stop was Russia, a U.S. "frenemy" in which the friend factor has been harder to spot since President Vladimir Putin returned to power in May 2012.

WikiLeaks, which says it is helping the 30-year-old Snowden, said via Twitter that he intended to go to Ecuador, whose government has antagonistic relations with Washington. Ecuador's foreign minister, Ricardo Patino Aroca, said, also via Twitter, that his government had received an asylum request from Snowden.

To be sure, the U.S. government is certain to marshal all of its diplomatic, legal and political powers to return Snowden to the United States, where he is charged with offenses under the Espionage Act and with theft of government property.

The United States has revoked Snowden's passport, sources familiar with the decision said on Sunday.

But Snowden has significant levers of his own, in the form of a cache of NSA secrets of unknown size and scope.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on Sunday that the U.S. government apparently does not know the extent of the secrets taken by Snowden, whose last job was as a systems administrator at an NSA listening post in Hawaii.

"The only thing I've learned is that he could have over 200 separate items and whether that's true or not, that's what has been relayed to me," Feinstein said on CBS "Face the Nation."

Snowden told Hong Kong's South China Morning Post on Saturday that the United States hacks into Chinese mobile phone traffic and text messaging, as well as Chinese university sites that host some of the country's major Internet hubs.

It is unclear whether such revelations played a role in Hong Kong authorities' decision to let Snowden depart, despite the U.S. request to detain him and begin extradition procedures.

Privately, U.S. officials say they believe Beijing authorities made the call to allow Snowden to leave. In doing so, the Chinese may have simply been passing along a "hot potato," that could have grown into a diplomatic spat.

"For China, this is certainly a bit of a relief. They don't want to let him stay there for a prolonged stay," said Cheng Li, an expert on Chinese politics at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

"If things get out of control (with Snowden) that will certainly undermine any achievement made in the summit in California, so China is probably very happy that Russia will be the main target," Li said, referring to the meetings between Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping earlier this month.

FALLOUT

Obama, who took flak in recent months over the Internal Revenue Service targeting of conservative groups and Justice Department subpoenas of media phone calls in other leak cases, has so far not faced major criticism of his administration's handling of Snowden.

Most U.S. lawmakers' ire has been directed at Snowden himself, as well as the systems that permitted him to get a sensitive job with contractor Booz Allen Hamilton and make away with evidence of some of the U.S. government's most shielded intelligence programs.

But U.S. Representative Peter King, a frequent Obama critic and Republican who sits on the permanent select committee on intelligence, said the president should be more aggressive in defending the surveillance programs that U.S. officials say have thwarted terrorist attacks, and more assertive with foreign partners.

"I find it troubling that the president has been so quiet on this. And again, I'm not saying he can control it, but there should be more of a presence including defending the NSA program," King told CNN. "It just seems as if we're adrift right now and I think that these countries are taking advantage of it.

"This is definitely a diplomatic hit at the president, at the U.S., but as Americans we have to support the president."

If Russia allows Snowden to continue on his journey toward Ecuador, it could wipe out what is left of Obama's policy, dating from 2009, of trying to "reset" relations with Moscow after they turned chilly under his predecessor.

Washington and Moscow have clashed recently over Russia's human rights, adoption by Americans of Russian orphans, missile defenses and, most consequentially, the civil war in Syria.

A photograph of Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin at last weekend's G8 summit, their hands clasped and staring unsmilingly into space, caught the mood of U.S.-Russian relations.

"What's infuriating here is Prime Minister Putin of Russia aiding and abetting Snowden's escape," said New York Senator Chuck Schumer, like Obama a Democrat. "The bottom line is very simple. Allies are supposed to treat each other in decent ways, and Putin always seems almost eager to put a finger in the eye of the United States, whether it is Syria, Iran, and now, of course, with Snowden."

"That's not how allies should treat one another, and I think it will have serious consequences for the United States-Russia relationship," Schumer told CNN's "State of the Union" program.

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, sought to keep the focus squarely on Snowden.

"He compromised our national security program designed to find out what terrorists were up to. So, the freedom trail is not exactly China, Russia, Cuba, Venezuela," Graham told Fox News.

"So, I hope we'll chase him to the ends of the Earth, bring him to justice and let the Russians know there will be consequences if they harbor this guy," he said.

(Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball, Phil Stewart, Toby Zakaria and Tom Ferraro. Editing by Fred Barbash and Doina Chiacu)

[Updated Mon, Jun 24, 2013 7:00 pm]

Awaiting the Supreme Court's gay marriage decisions

Live coverage from SCOTUSblog

The Supreme Court is expected to hand down several rulings Monday, two of which have the potential to drastically expand the rights of gays and lesbians in the country.

As the term draws to a close at the end of this week, the nine justices still have not released decisions in two highly anticipatedgay marriage cases—Perry v. Hollingsworth and Windsor v. United States—as well as two key cases involving race, Shelby County v. Holder and Fisher v. University of Texas.

At 9:15 a.m., the experts at SCOTUSblog—SCOTUS stands forSupreme Court of the United States—will begin analyzing what the Court might do in the liveblog below, and when a decision is handed down, this liveblog will likely be the first place to break the news.

In the Perry case, the court is expected decide whether California voters discriminated against gay people when they voted to ban same-sex marriage. In Windsor, the court is weighing whether the federal Defense of Marriage Act—which limits all federal marriage benefits to opposite sex couples--violates the constitutional rights of same-sex couples.

In Shelby, the justices could significantly scale back the federal government's right to supervise states with a history of voting discrimination against minorities, and in Fisher, the court will decide whether universities can use race as a factor in undergraduate admissions.

The Court will begin issuing opinions at 10 a.m. ET.