Doing time in Holot

Paul FitzPatrick reflects on the power of photography

by Paul FitzPatrick 12th May 2017

On a recent visit to Israel to find out more about the lives of Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers there, I chanced upon a photography exhibition at the Israel Museum featuring the work of the Israeli photographer Ron Amir. It was entitled ‘Doing Time in Holot’. Holot is the detention facility in the Negev Desert where African asylum seekers are routinely detained. It is not a prison, because those held within it are free to leave during the hours of 6am to 10pm – free to explore the surrounding desert. The photographs were very powerful, as was the reaction of the Sudanese and Eritrean asylum seekers whom I meet in Doncaster, who find the scenes so familiar.