MALAYSIA : ‘Speed up refugee resettlement’

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Meeting of minds: Dr Ahmad Zahid with Motorola Solutions chairman and chief executive Greg Brown on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.

NEW YORK: Malaysia has urged the international community to help resettle existing refugee populations in host countries to third countries.

Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said the delays in resettling these refugees would inevitably result in economic, social, political and security hardships to the host country.

He called on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and state parties to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its related Protocol to give serious attention and promptly act on the issue.

“While we are cognisant of the elements as contained in the New York Declaration on Refugees and Migrants, such initiatives should not unduly place non-signatory states to the relevant international instruments in a position inconsistent with the provisions of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties,” said Dr Ahmad Zahid in his speech at the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York yesterday.

On Friday, Malaysia had sought Lebanon’s assistance in fulfilling its pledge to absorb up to 3,000 Syrian migrants fleeing their war-torn country.

Malaysia has so far received 79 Syrian migrants in two batches as of May, and is looking at receiving another 421 by year-end. Lebanon, with a population of over four million people, was currently hosting some 1.5 million Syrian refugees

Dr Ahmad Zahid said Malaysia’s rapid development and growth had attracted people within the region, either through legal or illegal means.

“Malaysia recognises the contribution of the foreign workforce to the country’s economic prosperity. Hence, it is equally important to look into their safety and welfare,” he said.

The Government, said Dr Ahmad Zahid, pays serious attention to cases involving labour exploitation including forced labour.

This is reflected in the definition of trafficking in persons under the Malaysian Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants Act 2007, which has been widened to include labour exploitation.

This, said Dr Ahmad Zahid, is also in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which requires immediate and stern measures to eradicate forced labour and end modern day slavery as well as human trafficking.

Malaysia, he said, also works with the international community to tackle and eliminate such heinous crimes, which have caused grave injustice and untold sufferings.

Bernama reported that Malaysia was also planning to host an international conference with a view to seeking a permanent solution to the presence of close to 60,000 ethnic Rohingyas in the country.

Dr Ahmad Zahid said leaders from Myanmar, as well as nine other Asean countries and representatives from UNHCR, IOM and other relevant organisations, would be invited to take part in the event.



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Malaysia backs move to stamp out modern slavery, Zahid says

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ORK, Sept 21 — Malaysia is on the same page with countries like Britain on the need to stamp out human trafficking and modern slavery, says Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi. 

In this regard, he said Kuala Lumpur had proposed that Britain organise an international conference on modern day slavery during a round-table meeting of leaders, representatives of international organisations and experts convened by British Prime Minister Theresa May in the margins of the United Nations General Assembly (Unga) here.

“There’s a need for collective regional and international efforts to deal with the problem of human trafficking and modern slavery in an effective manner,” he told Malaysian media Tuesday night.

Besides Ahmad Zahid, the meeting was attended by Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, Slovakian President Andrej Kiska as well as relevant bodies and non-governmental organisations.

‘Modern slavery’, ‘trafficking in persons’ and ‘human trafficking’ have been used as umbrella terms for the act of recruiting, harbouring, transporting, providing, or obtaining a person for compelled labour or commercial sex acts through the use of force, fraud, or coercion.

Speaking ahead of the meeting in New York, May had said that across the world an estimated 45 million people were enduring experiences that were “simply horrifying in their inhumanity”.

Besides establishing a task force, the British government has also earmarked some 33 million pounds from the United Kingdom aid budget to tackle modern slavery in high risk countries where victims are regularly trafficked to the UK. 

Ahmad Zahid, who is also Home Minister, apprised the meeting of measures taken by Malaysia to deal with the issue, including through the Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants Act (Atipsom) 2007 which came into force on Feb 28, 2008.

He noted that agencies tasked with implementing Atipsom handled 1,133 cases of human trafficking between 2008 and August 2016, and detained 1,861 people. Over the same period, 141 cases had resulted in convictions, 33 of them in 2016. A total of 439 cases had gone to trial.

In a related development, Ahmad Zahid said efforts were also being made to extradite from Thailand, 10 people suspected of involvement in the 2015 discovery of mass graves containing the bodies of trafficked migrants at the Thai-Malaysian border.

On the sidelines of Unga, Ahmad Zahid also met Australian Immigration and Border Protection Minister Peter Dutton and the United States’ Susan Coppedge, ambassador-at-large to monitor and combat trafficking in persons and senior adviser to the Secretary of State.

On the meeting with Dutton, the deputy prime minister said Malaysia would send officials to Australia to see how both countries could cooperate in tackling refugee and migrant issues. 

In talks with Coppedge, he said the American official lauded Malaysia’s efforts in prosecuting those involved in human trafficking. 

Commenting on the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants adopted by world leaders attending the Unga on Monday, Ahmad Zahid said it was timely, given the pressing issue of large-scale movements of such groups. 

The Global Trends 2015 compiled by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) noted that 65.3 million people were displaced at the end of 2015, an increase of more than five million from 59.5 million a year earlier. The tally comprised 21.3 million refugees, 3.2 million asylum seekers, and 40.8 million people internally displaced within their own countries. — Bernama

- See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com



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UN call to ease visa restrictions for refugee students

UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency, is calling on universities to support scholarships for refugees and on governments to invest in education for refugees and to ease the provision of visas for refugee students. 

Melissa Fleming, chief spokesperson for UNHCR, spoke toUniversity World News in advance of making the plea in a speech at the annual conference of the European Association for International Education in Liverpool in the United Kingdom on Friday.

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“We are calling on countries as part of the global responsibility sharing not just to think in terms of funding or resettlement of refugees but also of student visas,” she said.

“Sometimes it is not up to the universities but to governments to say 'okay, if this is going to be our part in sharing responsibility for the global refugee problem, we will encourage student visas'.”

Fleming said currently there are a lot of universities willing to provide scholarships but they are facing red tape.

“To try to get a Syrian student into a US university, it takes two years to go through the screening process for resettlement to the US,” she said. “Yet there are a couple of examples – Ireland, which has a number of scholarships for Syrian students and Portugal as well – where it is not just the universities but the government also offering visas as their contribution to alleviating the refugee crisis.”

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Fleming said the key message of a new UNHCR report, Missing Out: Refugee education in crisis, released on Thursday is that the current approach to supporting education of refugees is “short-sighted” and “dumb”.

Only about half of refugee children are in primary school, one in four go to secondary school and only 1% of refugee youth have a chance to go to university.

This compares with UNESCO figures of 34% of young people of university age accessing higher education around the world.

“This is not just a situation of haves and have nots; it is short-sighted and dumb, frankly, not to put everything into investment in refugee children and youth."

She said the average time spent as a refugee is 20 years and many refugees stem from conflicts in areas of great strategic interest such as Afghanistan and Syria.

“Refugees would be the future architects and engineers, mayors and doctors and peace-builders of their war-torn country because virtually all refugees want to return home.”

Conversely, there is a lot of evidence that if we don’t put a child in education, they become susceptible to abuse and recruitment by armed groups, and for youths with no prospect of education or a job, working for the local warlord in some situations may be the only option.

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Perpetuating violence

So if you don’t invest in education, you “risk perpetuating the cycle of conflict and violence that you are investing in military and diplomacy to try to stop”, Fleming says.

Fleming said that a key problem for UNHCR is that its needs-based budget is designed in a way that makes life-saving the essential priority, followed by recovery from trauma, and support for other more long-term needs gets cut when the money – pledged by governments – doesn’t come in.

This lack of foresight creates a gaping hole, particularly in education. Donors are all on board when it comes to understanding the essential need for primary education, but when it comes to secondary education, there just isn’t enough money made available and higher education is off the scale altogether. 

It becomes a vicious circle because if children don’t go to primary school, they won’t make it to secondary; if they don’t go to secondary they won’t make it to higher education, and even if they do make it to secondary, they face the problem of lack of documentation of their secondary achievements or exam passes that might qualify them to move on to the tertiary level.

“Money talks,” says Fleming. “It can help convince countries to integrate refugees into their national education system rather than being stuck in an informal parallel system which is often not accredited.”

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“It is more difficult for the refugees,” she says, “because they then have to learn in the local language. But they are doing this in Lebanon with double shifts in the schools, a huge exercise that needs political will as the government has to adapt the school system if there are large numbers of refugees – but they are not going to unless there is the funding.”

There are lots of obstacles to negotiate, from the general underfunding of UNHCR and other humanitarian organisations, to refugees being in a very disadvantaged position. They might not have their high school transcripts with them or they forgot their high school diploma when they fled as the bomb dropped on their house, so there is a lot of red tape to negotiate.

The demand is increasing year by year. This summer’s figure of65.3 million people forcibly displaced worldwide compares with 38 million 10 years ago, and the funding is not keeping up with the needs, Fleming says.

UN summit

A UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants is being held in New York on Monday, in which the UN General Assembly will address the issue. The draft of the outcomes includes a pledge to support good quality primary and secondary education in safe learning environments for all refugee children within a few months of the initial displacement. And there is a specific pledge to support early childhood education and “promote tertiary education, skills training and vocational education”.

The text recognises that “in conflict and crisis situations, higher education serves as a powerful driver for change, shelters and protects a critical group of young men and women by maintaining their hopes for the future, fosters inclusion and non-discrimination, and acts as a catalyst for the recovery and rebuilding of post-conflict countries”.

The day after the summit, President Barack Obama has called aLeaders’ Summit on Refugees, whose purpose, according to US National Security Advisor Susan Rice, is to take direct action and “urge and support robust action by other UN member states”. 

New and significant concrete commitments are to be made, she says, to address the problem that “massive numbers of refugees are turning to dangerous and illegal smuggling networks in search of safety; and millions more face long-term dependence in first asylum countries, without access to lawful employment and education”.

The summits are a response to the European refugee crisis, Fleming says. “All of a sudden the world is noticing that there is a large number of people on the move. The meeting will not resolve the huge structural challenges immediately, but it will definitely launch a new framework for taking care of refugees at the outset.”

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Chain broken

The problem is that refugees are moving from one country to the next when they find they can’t work or find a way to put their children in school and the chain of education that leads up to higher education is immediately broken.

“When we surveyed refugees coming from Syria to Greece and moving to Austria, Germany and Sweden, we asked what was driving them to risk their lives again in rickety boats to move to other countries in Europe, and all of them were saying 'I don’t have the ability to make a living and ensure my kids get an education'.”

In Turkey only around 30% of refugee children are in school, in Jordan 70% and in Lebanon 40%. “Countries in Europe did not realise how much refugees would risk to get their children a chance to get an education.”

So many university students came to Europe either directly from Syria or from countries neighbouring Syria and all they wanted to do was continue their education. This presents a big challenge to the richer counties, to sort out red tape, ways of funding places, providing language programmes and bridging programmes to bring students whose education has been cut off by war to readiness for university in a foreign language or country.

There are two pathways that UNHCR highlights. One is investment in schemes like its own DAFI (a German acronym for the Albert Einstein German Academic Refugee Initiative) scholarship scheme, which is funded mostly by the German government, and supports scholarships for students in the country of asylum, typically next to the country of conflict they came from, so that they can more easily return home to help rebuild their country when the fighting stops.

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There is also a small but growing number of programmes of blended learning, where a community of learners is created in one learning space and connected online to tutors in partner universities in the country of asylum and in Western countries, with the latter providing accredited qualifications, including diplomas and degrees. Some of the learning is done at a distance online, but in some cases teachers also visit the learning centres in person, depending on the risks involved.

A consortium of this type of 'connected learning' is being developed to spread good practice and provide greater choice for students – typically situated in refugee camps or urban communities of refugees in countries such as Kenya and Jordan – through flexible pathways between providers in the consortium.

The UNHCR report cites the example of Nawa, a 20-year-old Somali refugee who never set foot in a school until she was 16. But thanks to the Fugee School, one of 121 refugee learning centres in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, she was given a chance to learn English and study for her secondary school certificate – and now she has been accepted onto a course at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus, where she is doing a foundation course while still volunteering as a teacher in the learning centre.

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Nawa is one of 42 refugee students currently enrolled in three universities in Malaysia as a result of strong advocacy with tertiary institutions by UNHCR.

“Every human being has the right to an education,” she said. “With education, you have the key to unlock every door. Before I came to Malaysia and started at Fugee School, I did not know what I wanted in the future. But now I know what life is like, what opportunities are out there, and I have better skills to serve the world.”

http://www.universityworldnews.com

Malaysia's DPM Zahid Arrives In New York For UNGA

NEW YORK: Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi arrived here to represent Malaysia at the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).

The commercial aircraft carrying Ahmad Zahid, who is also Home Minister, and his entourage touched down at the John F. Kennedy International Airport at about 9.25 pm Saturday (9.25 am Sunday in Malaysia).

This is his fourth visit to the United States since appointed deputy prime minister in July last year, and his maiden appearance as head of the Malaysian delegation at UNGA.

On hand to welcome him were Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman, as well as Malaysian officials based in New York and Washington.

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Ahmad Zahid's working visit to New York City is until Sept 25.

Besides Ahmad Zahid, the Malaysian entourage attending the UN gathering and related events, includes Anifah, as well as senior officials from the Deputy Prime Minister's Office, Foreign Ministry and Home Ministry.

Last month, Ahmad Zahid chaired the United Nations Security Council Open Debate on Non-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) at the UN headquarters.

Among the highlights of the deputy prime minister's visit this time is delivering the national statement for Malaysia at the General Debate on Sept 24.

Prior to that, Ahmad Zahid is scheduled to participate in the High-Level Meeting to address large movements of refugees and migrants at the General Assembly on Sept 19.

He will also join other leaders at the High-Level Meeting on the situation in Syria at the UN Security Council on Sept 21.

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In October last year, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, at the 70th session of UNGA, announced that Malaysia would open its doors to 3,000 Syrian migrants on humanitarian grounds over a period of three years to help ease the refugee crisis.

It was reported that Malaysia was aiming to give temporary shelter to 500 Syrian migrants by the end of this year.

Ahmad Zahid is also scheduled to hold bilateral meetings with his counterparts on the sidelines of the 71st UNGA to discuss matters of mutual interest.

- Bernama

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Asean lacks coordination on refugees

Kota Kinabalu: There is lack of coordination among Asean member states as well as lack of political will among leaders to bring about a permanent solution on the problem of refugees.

This is also compounded by marriages and liaisons between locals and refugees.

"There is also the problem of Asean countries which have not ratified the Refugee Convention.

"There are issues of governance in the countries from where refugees flee. UN perspective on Advocacy on Refugees is not working in Asean – it only works with countries providing ODA or Official Development Assistance such as the European Union, United States of America, Japan and Australia.

"There are also problems in the enforcement of refugee rights," said MJ Paluga if the University of Philippines Mindanao with AM Raqragio.

"He said the Asean Human Rights Declaration (AHRD) 2013 and Refugees, Article 2 stipulates: "Every person is entitled to the rights and freedoms set forth herein, without distinction of any kind, such as race, gender, age, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, economic status, birth, disability or other status."

Malaysia does not even accord to some of its citizens that are not of Malay ethnicity, Muslim creed, as many permanent residents holding red ICs, as well as Article 22: the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

There is no freedom of religion for Muslims other than Islam of the Sunni Shafie School in Malaysia or risk being labelled as deviant or unbelievers," he said.

"Under Article 35 on the right to development, even Malaysians in constituencies won by opposition do not get to enjoy public funding for development in some cases.

"What can we learn from ground realities? Institutional and international humanitarian-concern framings regarding the so-called 'refugee problem' should periodically calibrate itself to emerging phenomena from the ground so that our Asean Community response is more inclusive," said Paluga.

In 2015, Malaysia was estimated to have a labour work force of 14 million out of a population of 31 million citizens.

A reason for not adopting the UN Refugees charter was that it would be too expensive to accord them the treatment they deserve by law.

However, Paluga said there is also an Asean Human Rights Declaration (AHRD) 2013 and Malaysia is a member.

He was speaking at a session at the 10th International Malaysian Studies Conference at UMS.

"According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) roundtable on Nov 6, 2015, the Malaysia Trade Union Congress (MTUC) cited the Ministry of Human Resource estimate of undocumented migrants at around two million to the Ministry of Home Affairs estimate of undocumented migrants at around four million.

"The Ministry of Human Resource as of June 2015, estimated that there were 2,245,513 documented foreign workers.

"Unpublished figures from the Enforcement Division of the Immigration Department on the 2011 amnesty exercise registered 1,303,126 undocumented migrants.

"Hence, there are no definite authoritative figures to show the facts. In Sabah, the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) report on illegal migrants is still pending for action.

Paluga noted that Myanmar does not want to have any discussion on refugees. The country once told former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir to take all the Muslims if he was so concerned about them.

Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman, as the Asean Chair in 2015, stated that the long term solution would be for Myanmar to resolve the Rohingya crisis domestically," said Dagmar Oberlies in a presentation 'Human Rights Based Approaches – A Critical Review'.

http://www.dailyexpress.com.my

Compassion for refugees

IF your country was at war, or if you faced violence, torture or genocide because you believed in a different god or had a different skin colour or cultural practice, how would you feel? If your country was not safe, where would you go? It’s natural to want the best for yourself and your loved ones. You would run away. This would make you a refugee. However, being a refugee is too often like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. 

While refugees may have left the troubles of their own country, being unwelcome foreigners in another country has its own problems. No work (livelihood), no education for their children, no healthcare and perhaps no future. The gloomy and trying conditions in countries in which refugees seek refuge are likely to be a long one because the problems in their home country may take time to get fixed. 

In Malaysia, based on the 2014 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Fact Sheet, there were 142,831 refugees and asylum seekers registered with UNHCR in Malaysia. From Myanmar, there were 132,629, comprising 52,056 Chins, 34,871 Rohingyas, 11,765 Myanmar Muslims, 7,901 Rakhine, 3,630 Burmese and Bamars, 5,397 Mon, 5,323 Kachins and other ethnicities. There were 10,202 refugees and asylum seekers from other countries. 

UNHCR believes that there were 35,000 unregistered asylum seekers, whom UNHCR is working to register. While the sheer number may be a shock to many Malaysians, we are no strangers to refugees. In the 1970s, 250,000 Vietnamese refugees arrived by boat and were provided temporary shelter in Pulau Bidong, south of Pulau Redang. From the 1970s to 1980s, around 50,000 Filipino Muslim refugees were supported in Sabah when they fled conflicts in Mindanao.

 In the 1980s, several thousand Cambodian Muslim refugees were offered permanent residency in Malaysia. In the 1990s, several hundred Bosnians were provided asylum when their country was plunged into civil war. More recently, last October, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced that Malaysia would receive up to 3,000 Syrian refugees.

 However, going back even further in Malaysia’s history, it can be argued that the Malaysia you and I know was founded by a “refugee”. A refugee not in the strict sense of the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, also known as the 1951 Refugee Convention, but rather as a refugee fleeing violence and seeking out a safer place for refuge. If this does not sound anything like the history that you have learnt in primary or secondary school, perhaps a refresher on the history of Parameswara (Iskandar Shah) may help. 

Parameswara, king of Tamasek (Singapore), fled the island and settled in Malacca in 1401. He fled Tamasek because his home was attacked by Majapahits with 300 warships and 200,000 men. It is said that Parameswara, while sitting under a tree in Malacca, was emboldened when he saw a weaker mousedeer elude his hunting dog. He possibly identified with the mousedeer and seeing this as a good omen, established his court at Sungai Melaka. The rest, they say, is history. So from our history to modern times, Malaysia has hosted refugees. 

While there are many reasons why this is the case — such as geography, climate and economy — at the heart of it, I believe that Malaysians are grounded in hospitality, compassion and kindness. We know what it means to be in need or like the mousedeer hunted by a dog and, so, we are willing to help others as best as we can. While governments consider long-term solutions to the plight of the hundreds of thousands of refugees in our region, the tens of thousands here in Malaysia can do with your help. 

What kind of help? Not necessarily with financial or material support, access to education (nearly 30,000 of the refugees in Malaysia are children) nor access to health, but understanding and compassion. Understand that they did not leave their country just because they wanted to but because they had to. Having compassion, knowing that, “there but for the grace of God go I”. Understanding and compassion are built from encounters. 

If you do not know a refugee working in a restaurant, or cannot find an education centre teaching refugee children, there are also non-governmental organisations and faith based organisations working with these refugees. I found many touching stories of refugee resilience at stories.unhcr.org/my. Caring for others never makes us weak. It only makes us stronger. DANIEL LO, Special officer (human rights) to Senator Datuk Paul Low, minister in the Prime Minister's Department

Read More : http://www.nst.com.my

Putrajaya urged to allow Rohingya to work

Charles Santiago says education and jobs for refugees will reduce the need for foreign workers.

PETALING JAYA: Klang MP Charles Santiago has urged the government to take concrete action to help Rohingya refugees in the country improve their lives.

Speaking to FMT, he said the dire situation faced by the Rohingya and other refugees in the country was a long way from being resolved and that no amount of meetings and conferences would help.

He was reacting to a Reuters article which highlighted the plight of the refugees, who are in limbo because they don’t have formal refugee status.

He said Putrajaya should at least ratify the United Nation’s Convention on Refugees quickly.

“The missing ingredient in this crisis is the lack of political will on the part of relevant governments in the region, including the Malaysian government,” he added.

He said there was a lot that Putrajaya could do to make the lives of the refugees easier, and one of the most important steps it should take was to give them opportunities for employment and education.

Refugee employment, he said, could help reduce the number of migrant workers in the country, and not only in dirty, difficult and dangerous jobs.

“If we provide them with education opportunities, we could then employ them to fill vacancies which require skilled work,” he said, adding that refugees were known to excel in countries where they had been settled.

Employment and education for the refugees would not only reduce the need for Malaysia to look outside for its human resource needs, but also ensure that the refugees would become self-sustaining, he added.

Santiago said there was often a fear that refugees would not want to leave the country if the government gave them employment and education opportunities.

However, he said, those who had such a fear must recognise that the refugees had nowhere else to go or any resources to enable them to go elsewhere.

“If they cannot work, they will definitely be stuck here,” he said. “But if they work, they could become assets.”

There are some 150,000 refugees in Malaysia, many of whom are Rohingya Muslims who fled Myanmar to escape poverty, discrimination and persecution.

http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/

Thai court sentences Rohingya trafficker to 35 years prison

A MAN who trafficked ethnic Burmese (Myanmar) refugees has been given a stiff 35-year jail sentence by a Thai court, in a case from last year that led to the shocking discovery of jungle camps, mass graves and a major trans-border human trafficking syndicate in the kingdom.

According to the Thomson Reuters Foundation, named after the news wire’s charitable arm that focuses on human rights, the man was found guilty of trafficking nearly 100 Rohingyans in January last year.

Sunand was reportedly arrested after police intercepted five vehicles at a checkpoint in the Nakhon Si Thammarat province, which were carrying 98 men, women, and children who appeared “thin and tired” on Jan 11, 2015.

Nearly half of those being trafficked, or 42 of them, were boys and girls younger than 14 while one adult passenger was found dead.

Police used data from mobile phones seized from the drivers of the vehicles and bank transactions linking the man also known as Ko Mit Saengthong to a trafficking syndicate as evidence against him.

Human rights lawyer Janjira Janpaew, who has been monitoring the case, was quoted as saying that Sunand was found guilty of human trafficking, enslavement, and harboring the refugees. He was also fined THB660,000 (US$19,000).

“We didn’t think that the court was going to come down this hard, with 35 years. The punishment was more than we had expected,” Janjira was quoted as saying

The could also sentenced two others, Suriya Yodrak and Warachai Chadathong, to a year in prison for the complicity in the offences, but cut Suriya’s jail time to six month after he pleaded guilty.

SEE ALSO: Burma: Former UN Sec Gen Kofi Annan to help govt resolve Rohingya issue

Every year, tens of thousands of Rohingya, who are known as among some of the most persecuted minorities in the world, flee Burma and make perilous journeys in rickety boats to seek refuge in other Southeast Asian countries.

Many have perished in their pursuit of better lives, while others fall victim to human traffickers.

Meanwhile, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has told Burma that the world is very concerned about the tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslim refugees who have been living for more than four years in camps in northern Rakhine state after fleeing violence from the Buddhist majority.

“They deserve hope,” Ban said at a joint news conference Tuesday with Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Ban is in Myanmar to attend peace talks aimed at ending half a century of conflict between the government and the country’s many armed ethnic minority groups. The talks began Wednesday in Naypyitaw, the capital. About 2,000 delegates and guests are expected to attend the opening ceremony.

https://asiancorrespondent.com