Any meaningful discussion of rights of refugees in Malaysia must be concurrent with discussions on the citizens' rights, said a human rights lawyer in conjunction with the World Refugee Day yesterday.

Lawyer R Sivarasa said during a forum entitled "The Rights of Refugees The Malaysian Reality" organised by Amnesty International Malaysia, that the root cause of poor treatment of refugees in Malaysia lies with the fact that most Malaysians are still far from realising the full range of rights that they should be enjoying, particularly civil and political rights.

The lawyer said while it may not be fair to compare with other developed democracies where citizens enjoy a higher level of civil rights, Malaysia's performance should be compared with other countries which are closer to home.

"Thailand [is] relatively doing a lot better than Malaysia with less resources. They are treating their refugees more humanely than we do.

"Other countries in South Asia, such as Nepal and India, also have a lot of refugees. They [the two countries] deal with them in a far more humane approach," he explained during the three-hour forum held at the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall in Kuala Lumpur.

According to Sivarasa, although certain asylum seekers such as the Acehnese are given a certain level of protection locally, there is no guarantee that this is applied across the board for all asylum seekers.

"Each time a Burmese or an Acehnese get stopped [by the police], the person does not know for sure what is going to happen in the next five minutes. There is always a 50 percent chance that they are taken off to a detention centre," he said.

Those arrested usually spend months in these immigration detention centres. As a result, the asylum seekers live in an environment of fear, Sivarasa added.

Mindset problem

In terms of legal obligations, Sivarasa said the basic problem in Malaysia is the mindset of the government which is unprepared to adopt international standards with regards to the treatment of refugees.

Sivarasa asserted that the lack of transparency and the non-ratification of international instruments such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention has prevented a proper legal framework to be formed to deal with the issue of asylum seekers.

For instance, Sivarasa said, forced repatriation is a fundamental violation of refugee rights which has attained the status of customary international law requiring compliance of all states, but this had not stopped Malaysian authorities to deport Acehnese asylum seekers in a 1998 incident.

The lawyer pointed out that there remains much room for improvement in the way Malaysia treats its asylum seekers.

"In 1996, shocking [reports] were publicised of how detainees were dying in the immigration detention camps. We do not hear of deaths now but the conditions in there still cannot be tolerated as [being] humane," said Sivarasa.

He added that there has also been a recent escalation of problems for Filipino refugees in Sabah since the illegal immigrants' crackdown earlier this year.

"The Sabah government had a fairly humanitarian approach to the Filipino Muslims... [but] the reversal of this approach in the last one year has resulted in some families being torn apart," he said.

Backing for military regime

Meanwhile, Malaysia's lack of pro-active actions to deal with the issue of asylum seekers in the country also drew strong criticisms from Debbie Stothard, a panelist representing the Alternative Asean Network on Burma, a Bangkok-based human rights NGO.

"Malaysia claims to be a political leader in the region and a member of Asean but it has refused to take pro-active measures to reduce instability in the region," said Stothard.

According to her, Malaysia had actually contributed to the refugee problem in Southeast Asia by supporting the entry of Burma into Asean.

"After Burma joined Asean, asylum seekers have increased because [the opening of trade and investments in the country] had resulted in increased forced labour and political crackdowns," she added.

Stothard claimed that Malaysian companies had also contributed to human rights violations in countries such as Burma.

"In Burma, Petronas is buying stakes into a notorious gas pipeline development. People have been violated and forced to leave their homes," she lamented.

Not given recognition

However, another speaker M N Djuli from the International Forum for Acheh said the real problem in Malaysia is not that refugees are not taken care of, but rather that Malaysia does not recognise them as refugees.

"It is no secret that there are many thousands who are holding refugee papers issued by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and living in the country relatively freely.

"[However], Malaysia does not recognise these papers and ... many holding these papers have been arrested and deported, some to face grave consequences back home," he said adding that the paradoxical approach has resulted in Malaysia holding the bad end of the deal for not being recognised for its relative tolerance of refugees in the country.

According to Djuli, the treatment that foreigners receive in Malaysia often depends on the labour market conditions.

"When the country is in need of workers, there are pressures from the business sector for the government to be more tolerant. There is also less pressure from the police against illegal immigrants," he said, adding as illustration that although some 95 percent of workers involved in the Putrajaya project were illegal, there were no police action there.

Djuli also said that the treatment of Acehnese asylum seekers also depends on individual policemen, some of whom have been more sympathetic to their plight.

Continued influx of refugees

Earlier, UNHCR protection officer Shinji Kubo said there are currently some 70,000 individuals living under refugee-like or stateless-like situations in Malaysia.

"These persons often face unacceptable levels of sufferings and marginalisation due to their irregular presence in Malaysia," said Kubo.

Amongst others, the difficulties faced by these people include no schooling, limited access to medical and other basic welfare services, the absence of proper birth and marriage registrations as well as irregular employment conditions, he added.

According to Kubo, Malaysia makes an effort to respect fundamental principles of refugee protection, but the continued influx of refugees is quickly exhausting the country's capacity to provide protection for them.

"The UNHCR has assisted the Malaysian government with asylum seekers by granting them refugee status under its mandate. [However], the ad hoc and makeshift manner in which protection is provided is time-consuming and often inconsistent," he said referring to Malaysia's official position not to recognise any refugees.

The UNHCR official also urged non-governmental organisations to develop basic structures and local know-how to complement the refugee agency in addressing the needs of asylum seekers.