Police arrested about 50 asylum-seekers of various nationalities this morning, mainly outside the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Kuala Lumpur.

Brickfields OCPD Zulhasnan Najib Baharuddin said the foreign nationals in the group included 30 Burmese, 18 Indonesians, one Bangladeshi and one Thai.

About 30 of them had been detained by 9.45am at roadblocks mounted around the UNHCR building in Bukit Petaling and were taken away in police trucks to the Brickfields police station.

At a press conference this afternoon, Zulhasnan described this as an on-going "normal crime prevention to look after the whole district".

He said the detainees have been sent to the Langkap detention centre in Perak as they did not have valid travel documents. Among them were four women and a young child.

Last week, 239 asylum-seekers were arrested at the same location and are now being held at various detention centres, awaiting repatriation.

UNHCR refugee eligibility co-ordinator Evan Ruth expressed concern that, if the police persist in arresting asylum-seekers who are attempting to apply for UN protection, then it will no longer be able to fulfill its mandate to provide support and protection to refugees in Malaysia.

Ruth said he was surprised by today's police operation, as recent meetings with Foreign Affairs Ministry officials had indicated that the agency would be allowed to continue conducting interviews with asylum-seekers this week.

"They told us that they would speak to the police...we took that as some form of assurance that (the police) would not be here," he said.

He said no asylum-seekers had come to the agency after last Tuesday because of heavy police presence at the gates of the UNHCR office.

Twelve repatriated

Ruth also said 12 Acehnese among the 239 asylum-seekers arrested last week have been repatriated.

"It appears they went voluntarily as we were told that their travels costs were borne by their relatives. We were only able to independently verify that five people returned voluntarily - and none of them lived in Aceh, although they are Acehnese," he said.

Last week, a Bernama report had quoted Perak immigration director Ishak Mohamed as saying that 120 of the detainees had volunteered to return home.

Ruth said the number was nowhere as high as that because the remaining 214 people under detention have confirmed to UNHCR officers that they would like to seek asylum through the agency.

Of these, 70 individuals were transferred yesterday to the illegal immigrants' detention centre in Lenggeng, Negri Sembilan, while 30 more have been sent to Machap Umboo, Melaka. No reasons were given to the UNHCR for their relocation.

Ruth said officials in Langkap have assured UNHCR officers that detainees will not be deported if the agency has determined that they are eligible for refugee status.

UNHCR had previously said all asylum-seekers go through a vigorous interview process before being granted a refugee status and, in the case of Acehnese, temporary protection letters.

Its Geneva headquarters has noted that the safety of Acehnese is of particular concern should they be forcibly repatriated to Indonesia, given the state of conflict in their home province.

'No threat'

Meanwhile, protests from Malaysian civil society groups continue to pour in. Citizens' International joined the fray in expressing concern over the treatment of those genuinely seeking protection through UNHCR.

"Most of the Acehnese asylum-seekers are not combatants but innocent civilians who pose no threat to the security of Malaysia in any way. They are here waiting to be accepted by other countries," said chairperson SM Mohamed Idris.

"The very fact that they were detained on their way to the UNHCR office proves that they were seeking protection under the UN refugees' convention and (did) not (intend) to remain in Malaysia."

He added that such asylum-seekers must be treated as victims, and not as "opportunistic" illegal immigrants.

Yesterday, Foreign Affairs Minister Syed Hamid Albar had commented that "it is not right for UNHCR to register the Acehnese as possible refugees when they are not refugees".

He said that, if the UN agency was allowed to issue temporary protection letters, it would "create problems" and "encourage people to come to Malaysia".

In mid-May, the Indonesian government mounted an all-out military offensive to crush the long-running separatist movement in Aceh, after a peace initiative broke down.

This triggered a massive outflow of civilians seeking escape from the violence from both the military and separatists.

Indonesia's national human rights body Komnas-HAM has announced that it will be recommending that UN investigators probe human rights violations in Aceh and breach of humanitarian law under the Geneva Convention.