Two Rohingya asylum seekers were today charged in the Kuala Lumpur magistrate's court with not possessing legal travel documents despite being registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

They pleaded guilty but this was not recorded by the court after lawyers for the UNHCR intervened to state that the duo were Rohingya refugees and were thus persons of concern to the commission.

Justice Normazaida Ahmad Narihan fixed the hearing for June 13.

The refugees had been held at the immigration detention centre in Semenyih after a raid on April 20, which saw more than 55 undocumented foreign workers being rounded up in the Pudu area in Kuala Lumpur.

Most them were charged today and included immigrants of other Burmese ethnic origin as well as Indonesian and Thai nationals. They pleaded guilty and were sentenced to jail for between two and three months.

Last October, the government gave the assurance that it would recognise Rohingyas as refugees seeking asylum in Malaysia and would not subject them to arrest and detention.

Malaysiakini has since reported , however, that routine operations against undocumented migrants do not discriminate between economic migrants and asylum seekers.

This is the first time since the announcement that Rohingyas have been charged in court. (*)

Commenting on this outside the courtroom, Rohingyan community leader Zafar Ahmead Mohd Abdul Ghani appealed to the government not to target the group but to fulfill its pledge.

"Whether these people plead guilty or not guilty, I beg the government not to prosecute. They have already made the promise. Please do not subject us to arrests and detention," said Zafar, who heads a Kuala Lumpur-based Rohingya human rights watch committee.

(*) Note: It has been brought to our attention that this is not the first time that Rohingyans have been charged in court since the government announcement. We apologise for the error.