Much more need to be done for refugees

Tenaganita agrees with the Washington Refugees International report on Malaysia but says it is only the tip of the iceberg.

Petaling Jaya:  While Tenaganita agrees with the Washington Refugees International (RI)that there has been an improvement in the treatment of refugees, it says the RI focused only on the Burmese refugees.

The RI field report, which focused on Burmese refugees, said Malaysian authorities in the past year had made no attempt to deport refugees and that there has been a decrease in immigration raids and arrests of registered refugees.

Tenaganita Program Coordinator, Aegile Fernandez said  based on these two factors, RI concluded that there has been improvement in the treatment of refugees in Malaysia. However, more needed to be done in order to build on this “progress”.

“In the case of the Burmese refugees, there has been a definite decrease in  refugees being sent across the Malaysian/Thai Border over the past year espcially those holding United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) cards,” Fernandez said.

She said there are many more refugees who are not registered with UNHCR and who are still being sent across the border.

According to the UNHCR Malaysia website, as of February 2011, it is estimated that there are 10, 000 unregistered refugees in Malaysia.

As for the second condition where there is a decrease in immigration raids, Fernandez said that they are still ongoing but on a “smaller scale. Refugees are being released faster and many have shared with us that they have to still give some money to the authorities for their release,” she added.

She also said that the report does reflect that the Rela authorities have improved in their treatmeny of refugees.

Malaysia was notorious for its treatment of refugees. It has been reported, for example, that the Rela volunteer corps have mistaken refugees as illegal immigrants and imprisoned them even though they held UNHCR cards.

The RI report released early this week noted that since 2009, the number of registered refugees in Malaysia had increased from 45,000 to more than 80,000.

About 90 percent of them are from Burma, where ethnic minorities like the Chin, Rohingya and Karen are said to be subject to systematic  abuse.

It added that the improvement of refugee treament had yet to be codified into policies and called on the government to “build on the progress” by setting up a system of residence and work permits, a suggestion which has been frequently mooted by  local refugee advocacy groups.

Malaysia has not signed the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which sets out a framework for the protection of refugees. This has often been used as an execuse for the lack of a refugee management in Malaysia.