Mutasim Ali

Sudanese asylum seekers celebrate the announcement that Omar al-Bashir will step down after 30 years in power, south Tel Aviv, April 11, 2019. (Edo Konrad)

‘We’ll build a new country’: Sudanese refugees celebrate Bashir’s downfall in Tel Aviv

Celebrations erupt on the streets of south Tel Aviv as Sudan’s dictator steps down after 30 bloody years in power. Despite what appears to be a military takeover, Sudanese asylum seekers in Israel believe their revolution will win out. By Edo Konrad and Oren Ziv Mutasim Ali didn’t have much time to talk when we met in his south Tel…

By Edo Konrad April 11, 2019

African migrants gather during a protest outside the Supreme Court in Jerusalem on January 26, 2017. (Sebi Berens/Flash90)

Between determination and despair: Meet the refugees fighting deportation

The Israeli government has begun the first stages in its planned deportation of African asylum seekers. Refugee activists and advocates are preparing to fight it. The start of the new year marked the first stages of the Israeli government’s plan to deport the roughly 40,000 asylum seekers, most from Eritrea and Sudan, currently living in Israel. The government announced in…

By Joshua Leifer January 16, 2018

Mutasim Ali says goodbye to friends before being driven to Holot. (photo: Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

In first, Israel grants refugee status to Sudanese asylum seeker

Six years after he fled Darfur for Israel, Mutasim Ali, one of the leaders of the asylum seekers’ struggle in Israel, has been granted refugee status. Ali: ‘Now I can live a normal life with dignity.’ By Yael Marom Mutasim Ali was in the middle of his law school class when he learned that he…

By +972 Magazine June 24, 2016

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Hebron demonstrators were calling upon Obama to remember the civil rights movement in the US (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

No Voice: Hopes for Israeli elections from those who cannot vote

Over 200,000 people with no legal status live in Israel today. There are another 4 million in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. All of these people are directly affected by Israeli elections but they have not right to vote. This is what they have to say — about the Right and the Left, the…

By +972 Magazine February 6, 2015

An African asylum seeker rests during a march from the Holot detention center, in which they are jailed, to the Israeli-Egyptian border in protest of Israel's asylum policies. June 27, 2014. (Photo by Yotam Ronen/Activestills.org)

‘A new page in human history’: Darfuri refugee on landmark court ruling

Mutasim Ali is happy but he is not celebrating the landmark court ruling that will set him and thousands of other African asylum seekers free by the end of the year. There is a long, bumpy road ahead, he says, but ‘Israel will be a better place and it is our responsibility to make it so.’…

By +972 Magazine September 22, 2014

A youth dressed with uniform of the USSR army, marches during a protest marking the International Worker's Day in center Tel Aviv, May 1, 2014.

Photos of the week: Between May Day and Nakba marches

This week: Palestinian citizens of Israel march to the destroyed village Lubya, Israeli activists commemorate the Nakba, solidarity with administrative detainees, May Day celebrations, the leader of Israel’s refugee movement says goodbye to freedom, and more.

By Activestills May 8, 2014

Mutasim Ali says goodbye to friends before being driven to Holot. (photo: Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

PHOTOS: African refugee protest leader sent to Holot detention center

Mutasim Ali, a Sudanese asylum seeker and one of the leaders of the African refugee protest movement in Israel, was sent to the Holot open detention center in Israel’s south around noon on Monday. Like other asylum seekers, Ali receive a summons to Holot during a visit to renew his visa at the Interior Ministry…

By Activestills May 5, 2014