40 asylum seekers among 80 nabbed in Selayang

comments     Pauline Puah     Published     Updated

About 40 asylum seekers were among 80 people arrested last night in a major police crackdown on illegal immigrants in Selayang, Selangor.

Volker Turk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Kuala Lumpur confirmed the arrests when contacted today.

He said about 80 people were arrested last night but only about 40 of them were confirmed as having in their possession valid temporary protection letters from UNHCR.

They are now held at the Kompleks Wilayah immigration detention centre in Kuala Lumpur, while waiting to be transported to the Semenyih or Lenggeng immigrant detention centres.

Turk said UNHCR would try to obtain release for those who are registered with them but was uncertain when they could be set free.

Communication gap

Asked to comment on the continuous arrests of refugees recently following the Malaysian government's pledge to crack down on illegal immigrants, Tusk said "apparently, there is still the 'communication gap' between the authorities and UNHCR."

"We have to see how to resolve this problem," he said, adding that many officers involved in the crackdown might not know the position of refugees.

"We have to raise this to the authorities so that they understand our stand and what we are doing,"

Two weeks ago, the government gave notice that it planned a new major crackdown on illegal immigrants which could see more than a million detained and deported.

Malaysia has strictly refused to recognise the status of refugees on the ground that it is not party to the 1951 UN Convention on the Status of Refugees. This poses a problem for UNHCR and human rights groups who rely on the authorities to make clear distinction between economic migrants and refugees.

Human rights group Amnesty International Malaysia refugee co-ordinator K.Shan in a statement today said among those arrested last night were women and children aged from two to six.

Last week, malaysiakini reported that seven Acehnese refugees, including three children, who were detained for five days have claimed that they went through a traumatic experience.



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