Category: Asylum seekers

Amnesty International looking for answers from the Chinese

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is an update of the story we posted here eight days ago.

Amnesty International wants to know what happened to 20 Muslim Uighur asylum seekers that Cambodia handed over to China recently.  Good luck with that request, or the request to see them!

Uighur asylum-seekers who were forcibly deported from Cambodia last week after the country refused to release any information.

Cambodia deported back to a group of 20 Muslim Uighurs who the Uighur American Association said some in the group had witnessed security forces killing and beating Uighur demonstrators and they could face persecution, including possible execution, in China.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu declined to say where the Uighurs were or whether they had been charged with any crime upon their return to China.

Chinese authorities accused them of being “criminals” over violent protests in July.

[….]

Amnesty International has also urged the Chinese government to provide the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) with immediate access to the 20 individuals to monitor their well-being.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Asia, Thailand is throwing out the Hmong (here).

Indonesian Christian asylum seekers released from detention in Washington State

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’m assuming these are some of the detained asylum seekers that the Obama Administration has begun releasing (reported here ten days ago).   The three Indonesians are Christians and are fearful of the Muslim majority if they return to Indonesia.  From AP:

EVERETT, Wash. — Three Indonesian immigrants who are fighting deportation because they say their Christian faith would lead to persecution in their native country have been released from a detention center in Washington.

The release of the immigrants is the latest episode in an effort by Christian Indonesian nationals from Western Washington and around the country to stay in the United States, the Everett Herald reported Sunday.

Indonesia, a country of more than 200 million people, has witnessed deadly clashes between Muslims and Christians in recent years. Beheadings, hundreds of deaths and church burnings have all been linked to religious tensions. Indonesia is about 86 percent Muslim.

What makes Westerners think that as the Muslim population increases in the decades ahead that we won’t suffer the same persecution as Christians in Muslim countries face today?

Malta Update: NGOs campaign to close detention centers

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I wonder if there is some sort of international strategy going on by the Open Borders non-governmental organizations (NGO) movement to get rid of detention centers.  We just saw the Obama Administration put in place new, less restrictive, requirements on detention that go into effect in January for “asylum seekers” coming across our borders.  Now I see that in Malta the NGOs (probably mostly funded through some government program) are staging protests against detention of the mostly Africans who arrive there by the thousands each year.

From Malta Today:

Moviment Graffitti spokesperson Andre Callus yesterday said detention centres in Malta were “useless and unjust” and a “waste of financial and human resources”.

Representatives of Moviment Graffitti, Migrants’ Solidarity Movement, Jesuit Refugee Service, Third World Group, Moviment Azzjoni Xellug (MAX), Kopin, Alternattiva Demokratika Zghazagh and Zminijietna last night slept in a tent fenced by wire at City Gate, in solidarity with migrants imprisoned at the detention centres in Safi and Ta’ Kandja.

The shabby tent, intended to symbolise the appalling state of Malta’s closed detention centres, was already set up by yesterday morning, creating an unusual attraction for passers-by on their way to Republic Street for Christmas shopping.

Information leaflets were distributed to onlookers, who – according to the organisers – “have not been very negative about the idea of doing away with detention centres.” Callus however stressed the need for the public to become more familiar with the issue: to “know the difference between open centres and detention centres”, and to be more informed about the inhumane conditions in which the persons inhabiting the latter are currently living in.

“The detention system in Malta is creating unnecessary suffering,” Callus said. “People’s liberty is arbitrarily being taken away when they are locked up for a maximum of 18 months in small spaces with lack of hygiene, limited access to medical care, lack of fresh air and complete uncertainty about their situation and their future.”

Not a a first choice???   We just learned here that it was and the pull factor is the US State Department policy that is bringing hundreds of Malta’s illegal aliens to the US as refugees.

Callus explained that Malta is rarely the first choice for the vast majority of migrants, as many are brought to the island after encountering difficulties on their way to Italy. Therefore, he said, it is a misconception that detention centres act as a deterrent for people to come to Malta.

You know if the State Department had said no to former US Ambassador to Malta, ‘Tea Party Molly,’ who promoted the idea of transforming some of these Africans to refugees and helped send them to a town near you, there might be a significantly smaller pull factor for beleagured Malta.

For new readers, use the key word ‘Malta’  in our search box for the many posts we have written on the subject.

Cambodia deports Uighurs seeking asylum, returns them to China

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Wow!  The Cambodian government just put them on a plane sent by China and deported them.  This is a story I have mentioned recently here.  No messing around with human rights concerns and human rights activists—bam, just sent them back.  From an AP story posted on a Cambodian blog:

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — A group of Muslims who fled China after deadly ethnic rioting and sought asylum in Cambodia were sent back home Saturday, even though rights groups fear they face persecution there.

Interior Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Khieu Sopheak said the 20 members of the Uighur minority had been put on a special plane sent from China that left Phnom Penh International Airport Saturday night.

“They are going back to China,” he said.

Cambodia has been under intense pressure from China to deport the Uighurs, whom Beijing has called criminals after they fled the country with the help of a secret network of missionaries. The expulsion came a day before Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping visits Cambodia as part of a four-country tour.

The United States, the United Nations and human rights groups had urged Cambodia to stop the deportation. A spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee agency said it had not finished evaluating the Uighurs, including two children, for refugee status.

The Uighurs were being deported because it was determined they entered the country illegally, Foreign Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong said earlier. He said two other Uighurs who had been with the group are missing.

Some countries have refused to send Uighurs — such as those released from U.S. detention at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba — back to China over concerns about retribution and abuse.

“It is hugely concerning that Cambodian authorities are not giving this group an opportunity to seek asylum, or for authorities to assess their asylum case,” Brittis Edman, a Cambodia researcher with Amnesty International, said late Saturday before the group left.

“This group will be particularly vulnerable to torture. Because of those concerns, Cambodia shouldn’t send them back.”

Uighurs say Beijing has long restricted their rights, particularly clamping down on their practice of Islam.

Bottomline is that it looks like China isn’t going to mess around and get squishy with Islamic supremacism in China.  Since our Marxists and Maoists, especially in the Obama Administration (Anita Dunn, where are you?), are bending over backwards to appease Islamists, I’m wondering how their reverence for China squares with this latest action.

For new readers, we have been following Uighur issues ever since the Uighurs detained at Guantanamo Bay were considered for release into the refugee community in the US. See ‘State Department calls Gitmo prisoners refugees’ here.

Here is a post Judy wrote in October of 2008 where she quotes Andrew McCarthy on the Uighurs:

And Andy McCarthy, who has more experience than practically anybody at prosecuting jihadists, wrote :

Jihadists — and there is not question that the Uighurs are jihadists — do not recognize distinctions based on the Westphalia world of nation-states. In their view, it is Dar al Islam or Dar al Harb: i.e., you are either part of the realm of the Muslims or the realm of war, and the goal is to turn Dar al Harb into Dar al Islam by any means necessary. Releasing trained jihadists into the United States on the theory that their beef is with the Chinese and they have no problem with us would be a delusional act of suicide.

Also, note that we learned just a few days ago that we have an exiled Uighur leader living in a town near you, here.

You can bet that the Obama Administration tip-toes around this issue so as not to tick-off the Chinese who hold our financial future in their communist hands.

To find all of ours stories on Uighurs, you may have to use our search function for several spellings of the word:  Uighurs, Uyghurs, and Uighers.

Yemen detains and deports refugees other than Somalis

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Since I was on the subject of Yemen (and Obama ordering a missile strike there), I thought this story from UN Radio was interesting.

The number of people making the perilous journey across the Gulf of Aden into Yemen has risen by 50 per cent.

United Nations refugee agency UNHCR says more than 74,000 Africans have reached the shores of Yemen this year up from 50,000 recorded in 2008. Patrick Maigua reports from Geneva.

UNHCR says the refugees and migrants, most of them fleeing desperate situations of civil war, political instability, poverty, famine and drought in the Horn of Africa make the dangerous journey on smuggler’s boats across the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea under harrowing conditions. In some cases they are beaten, raped, killed or thrown overboard into the shark infested waters.

More Ethiopians  than Somalis have arrived in Yemen this year.

“Unlike in previous years, Somalis are no longer the majority of arrivals. With nearly 32,000 Somali arrivals this year their number remains steady in comparison to 2008. However, the number of Ethiopians reaching Yemeni shores more than doubled this year – totaling over 42,000 people.

I don’t know why Yemen would discriminate and not grant asylum to Ethiopians unless these are non-Muslim Ethiopians.   I wish the UN would stop being so politically correct and tell us why there is a  double standard.

Yemen currently hosts over 150,000 Somali refugees. UNHCR says it does not have access to Ethiopian nationals arriving in Yemen, but has raised its serious concern over the continued detention and deportation of Ethiopians without granting them access to asylum procedures.