Human rights watchdog Suaram has reminded the government to distinguish between refugees and illegal immigrants as they are different.

"Suaram reiterates and reminds the Malaysian authorities that refugees are not merely illegal immigrants but victims of war and serious human rights abuses in their own countries," Suaram coordinator Eric Paulsen said in a statement ahead of International Refugee Day tomorrow.

The government and the media, he said, hardly picture refugees as human beings who face grave adversity, persecution or war in their home countries.

"Instead these special and vulnerable groups of people are conveniently labelled as illegal immigrants who violate the immigration laws of the country, when these harsh laws should have no bearing on them."

"Often, they are unjustly accused of having negative effect on the country including the rise of crime, social ills, immorality and unemployment for the locals," Paulsen added.

'Overzealous' authorities

He claimed there is constant concern that the "overzealous" authorities will cause further misery, torture and even death if these asylum seekers and refugees are not handled properly.

He urged the authorities to adhere to international standards of human rights, humanitarian and refugee laws in its treatment of asylum seekers and refugees in the country.

"Of uppermost importance is the acceptance of the customary international law principle of non- refoulement which prohibits the host states from returning or expelling asylum seekers and refugees to any home or country where they are likely to face further danger or persecution," Paulsen said.

Meanwhile, human rights lawyer Amer Hamzah Arshad raised his concern that the Immigration Act does not recognise refugees to date.

"Lack of recognition of a refugee status in the Malaysian context has caused refugees to be in a state of uncertainty, inevitably resulting in the deprivation of socio-economic rights and human rights violation," he told malaysiakini .

He cited an example of a client, Ahmad Adnan Abdul Kadir, who was charged and prosecuted by the magistrate's court last year for not possessing legal travel document despite being certified as an Acehnese refugee by UNHCR.

Ahmad Adnan was arrested last April for illegal entry and was sentenced to 10 months' jail and two strokes of the rotan after pleading guilty to the offence.

A higher court later set aside the conviction and jail sentence after ruling that there was a miscarriage of justice. However, the Achenese was arrested by immigration officers upon his release as the government does not recognise his refugee status.

Child refugees still arrested

Amer stressed that the government must distinguish between refugees and economic migrants because the latter have "luxury choices" to decide to stay in their homeland or resettle to another country to improve their life whereas refugees face threats of persecution if they return home.

He urged the government to amend the Immigration Act to recognise the refugee status and issue bonafide refugees with temporary protection permit. Malaysia, he pointed out, must also ratify the Refugee Convention.

The lawyer said that although Malaysia had ratified the Convention of the Rights of the Child - which among others prescribe that protection must be given to child refugees - there were still cases where child refugees have been arrested.

"So where is the protection? The government must therefore amend the Immigration Act to reflect its responsibility to the Convention of the Rights of the Child," he said.

The two largest groups of refugees in need of protection and recognition in Malaysia are ethnic Burmese Chin and Rohingya, and people from the Indonesian province of Acheh.

On Thursday, UNHCR released a new statistics showing that 1.1 million refugees repatriated in 2003, and that the global number of persons under the agency's protection last year fell to 17.1 million - the lowest in at least a decade.