Chin Refugee Committee ( CRC ) MALAYSIA

Judge rules refugee who abandoned newborn is an unfit mother

2012-01-25T06:44:00.000+07:00

After Nunu Sung delivered her baby alone on a cool summer's evening outside her cousin's Wheaton apartment, she placed the newborn in a leafy area and then went back inside, where she cleaned herself and fell asleep.

A DuPage County judge on Tuesday found the Myanmar refugee to be an unfit mother, unswayed by her assertion that she intended to retrieve her son.

"One of the main issues in this case is: Did Miss Sung intend to return for the baby?" Judge Robert Anderson said. "I'm finding I did not believe her testimony on this issue."

Anderson's ruling sets the stage for a separate hearing process that starts Thursday and will determine whether the child should have further contact with his mother.

Sung, 26, is serving a prison sentence for lying to police about the birth of her son on June 12, 2009.

She became pregnant by a fellow member of her Haka Chin ethnic group in Texas, where she had settled after fleeing persecution in Myanmar, formerly Burma, officials said.

The child's father abandoned Sung, and she kept her pregnancy a secret. As she neared term, Sung traveled to Wheaton to stay with a cousin and her husband, sleeping on the floor of their studio apartment.

A neighbor — "almost miraculously," the judge noted — found Sung's wet, cold, naked newborn and alerted authorities, who treated the hypothermic baby.

Police linked Sung to the birth because her cousin had alerted police that night that Sung was missing, authorities said.

Her attorneys argued that cultural, language and medical issues from a difficult delivery prompted Sung initially to deny to police and to the cousin that the baby was hers.

The judge rejected those arguments.

"She had ample time to ask the cousin, the cousin's husband or the police for help," Anderson said. "All she had to do was say something to somebody."

Sung, who is due to be paroled this month, showed little emotion as she was led out of the courtroom, but attorney Terra Costa Howard said Sung was "crushed and devastated."

Howard and fellow attorney Jennifer Wiesner said they will appeal at the conclusion of the hearing on whether Sung should have contact with the child.

The child's court-appointed attorney, Kathleen Anderson, who is not related to the judge, said she was satisfied with the decision.

Chuck Rohde, the attorney for the foster parents, said they have "a loving home" and hope to adopt the child.

Refugees form groups to conduct gotong-royong and night watch

2012-01-18T03:55:00.002+07:00

thestar online

IT IS past 8am and the sun is slowly rising with a lazy drawl, waking up Malaysians from their slumber but walking under the heat with glee is a group of young children with shovels and a wagon eager to begin the day’s work.

The children are young refugees who once wreaked havoc in their community since they had no other activities to occupy their time.

In Malaysia, a large concentration of refugees live in the Klang Valley.

Leaving behind their home, friends and family, these refugees come to Malaysia, seeking asylum, a job and a life. However, most of the time they are shunned by society.

“Often in an area where locals, refugees and immigrants live together, it is easy to blame the foreigners,” said United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) external relations officer Yante Ismail.

In Loke Yew, Kuala Lumpur, where a large number of refugees reside, littering was a common problem.

Residents then decided to discuss the issues they faced with the refugees, hoping to find a solution.

“The refugees care about Malaysia and wanted to be a part of the solution. They decided to have a gotong-royong to get rid of the mess,” said Yante.

They also set up night watch groups to help curb loitering, being mindful of the local population.

Enthused from the success of Loke Yew, the UNHCR decided to hold similar gotong-royong in other refugee areas in the Klang Valley and came up with the Jom Gotong Royong contest.

Yante said they decided to have a contest as an incentive for refugees.

Each group is given a small amount of seed money and so far they have succeeded in recruiting 23 community groups in three months.

The winners will be decided by a panel of judges and the first prize winners will receive RM3,000, followed by RM2,000 and RM1,000 for the second and third place respectively.

“The money will be put back into the society for other projects they can undertake,” added Yante.

One of the groups involved is the Kachin Refugee committee which is based in Genting Klang.

They plan to meet three times a month for four hours with 40 volunteers for each session.

Another group is the Tedim Community Malaysia which has made Segambut their home.

They planned to meet once a week for a clean-up session.

Each session so far has 10 volunteers.

“They have noted that between each consecutive session there has been less rubbish compared with the previous week,” added Yante.

The third community, which has entered the contest, is the Zomi Innkuan Malaysia from the Hang Tuah area. They meet twice a week with about 20 refugee volunteers per session.

One of the more laudable communities is the Chin community in Taman Mewah, Koperasi Quepecs in Kajang.

The refugees have come under the Chin Diamond Learning Centre umbrella, where the children are studying under head teacher John.

“Our residents’ association had always engaged us in their discussions.

“The school is important because the children used to cause a lot of problems before,” said John who has been with the centre for two years.

Having solved the children’s issues, the residents’ association turned to John as a spokesman and mediator.

John said the community had already started their own clean-up session before the contest started.

“We feel like we are in our country so we feel responsible for it,” he said.

John has managed to recruit more than 40 people for each clean-up session that has been conducted regularly almost every week.

Taman Mewah Cheras Management Corporation treasurer Muhammad Basir said they took their hats off to the refugees.

Initially there used to be a lot of fights, drinking and trouble in the neighbourhood when the refugees get together in the evening.

“We could not blame them because they were frustrated and didn’t know what to do or where to work.

“However, after talking to John and engaging in this gotong-royong, things have changed,” he said.

He added that it was great to see so many of the refugees taking part in the clean-up.

“Even the children are eager to help their parents and we have not had many locals doing the same let alone the children.

“We respect them for this hard work they have put in,” added Basir.

Those interested in seeking information on ways to help the refugees can email infomalaysia@unhcr.org

Refugees have rights, too

2012-01-06T03:05:00.000+07:00

Myanmar refugee children enjoying a magic show hosted by St Francis Xavier Church in Petaling Jaya

ON Dec 10, 1948, these words were adopted in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."

How we treat those who flee from danger and persecution and seek help at our doorstep is a reflection of the morality and humanity of our society.

Malaysia's refugee story began in 1975 with the arrival of Indochinese refugees by boat. A majority of them were resettled to other countries and some returned home safely.

During the same period, Malaysia offered local integration to some 13,000 Muslim Cham refugees from Cambodia. And in the 1970s and 1980s, Malaysia witnessed the arrival of some 50,000 Filipino Muslims from Mindanao who fled to Sabah.

These refugees were received and eventually locally settled into Sabah by the government with the support of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Since then, we have received refugees from Bosnia, Aceh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Somalia.

UNHCR reported that as of end October last year, it had registered 95,300 refugees and asylum-seekers: 87,300 are from Myanmar and 8,000 from other countries, including some 4,300 Sri Lankans, 1,100 Somalis, 740 Iraqis and 440 Afghans.

Some 29 per cent of refugees and asylum-seekers are women and there are also 19,500 children below the age of 18.

There are also a large number of "persons of concern" to UNHCR who are still waiting to be registered -- a process that can take some time as the organisation is restricted by limited resources to quickly register all new asylum applications. Refugee communities estimate the population of unregistered refugees and asylum-seekers to be 10,000 persons.

Because they are not given work permits, asylum seekers in Malaysia can become victims of exploitation at their workplace, with very low pay, unsafe conditions and without any form of insurance coverage.

Children form around 20 per cent of the estimated total population of asylum seekers. Less than 40 per cent of them have access to any type of education -- mainly informal classes are conducted by non-governmental and faith-based organisations -- but children attending these classes cannot take any recognised examinations and receive internationally-accepted qualifications.

It is a selfish society that says to those fleeing from danger and persecution and seeking help at our doorstep that we cannot shelter and feed them until our own people are comfortable and well-fed, we cannot clothe them until our own people are well-dressed, we cannot give them jobs because we already have too many foreign workers in our midst, and we cannot educate their children because that would divert precious resources from our own children.

International attention focused on the plight of asylum seekers in Malaysia when on Aug 31, the High Court of Australia ruled that the refugee swap deal was invalid.

The principal reason is that Malaysia is not legally bound to provide the access and protections required under Australian law in order for Malaysia to be validly declared as a country to which asylum seekers could be sent for processing of their asylum claims.

In June, then deputy secretary-general (Registration and Immigration) of the Home Ministry, Datuk Raja Azahar Raja Abdul Manap (who has since retired), told the New Straits Times that even though Malaysia was not a signatory to the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees or its 1967 Protocol, it wanted to establish itself as a country that was raising the standard of treating asylum seekers.

In fulfillment of the prime minister's Malaysia Day pledge to transform Malaysia into a modern and progressive nation, and consistent with our international obligation as a member of UN Human Rights Council, Malaysia must provide protection by law to asylum seekers and refugees to guarantee their access to employment, education and healthcare.

Source: New Straits Time

Rohingya Refugees And Thailand’s ‘Push-Back’ – Analysis

2012-01-03T07:31:00.000+07:00

eurasiaview

By Panchali Saikia

The Rohingya refugee crisis is not a new phenomenon, and it has now grabbed the attention of the international media for all the wrong reasons. The Rohingyas, in large numbers, are now trying to escape to Malaysia via the sea route through Thailand, but are being denied entry by Thai authorities and forcibly pushed back. Earlier this year around 91 persons believed to be Rohingyas were rescued near Andaman Island by the Indian Navy and around 129 by the Indonesian Navy in Aceh. The Rohingyas have been sheltered by Bangladesh for nearly three decades. What is the reason for their escape to Malaysia? Why is Thailand forcibly pushing them back to sea? Thailand has provided shelter to hundreds and thousands of other displaced people from Myanmar, why is then expelling the Rohingyas?

Why Are The Rohingyas Escaping To Malaysia?

Rohingyas fled repression in Myanmar and lived in exile, mainly in Bangladesh. Since Myanmar’s independence in 1948, its successive governments have attempted every possible way to push them out. The Emergency Immigration Act of 1978 and later the ethnic cleansing campaign known as Naga Min, or Dragon King, prosecuted illegal entrants, primarily in Rakhine state. This drove out nearly 200,000 Rohingyas from Myanmar.

However, after providing shelter to the Rohingyas for nearly three decades, Bangladesh is now concerned about the annual increase in their numbers. Apart from being an economic burden, the Rohingyas’ involvement in insurgent activities along the Myanmar-Bangladesh border is feared by the government. Hence to reduce the influx, the government has declared that it will no more consider any asylum seeker as refugee. Also, it has now denied permits for aid agencies to assist unregistered refugees. Anti-Rohingya communities in Bangladesh have also pressurized the government to repatriate the Rohingyas. Due to the denial of protection, assistance, and fear of repatriation, the Rohingyas are now escaping to Malaysia through the sea route. Malaysia is seen as the best destination because of the religion factor. Also, the Malaysian government’s permit to access the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has attracted asylum seekers.

Rohingyas: A Threat To And Burden For Thailand

This trend has become a major concern for Thailand, as most of these migrants/refugees escaping are landing in Thailand. It is not for the first time that Thailand has pushed them back. In 2008 and 2009, the Thai authorities were condemned by the international community for pushing the Rohingyas into international waters without any assistance or protection.

The Thai authorities are apprehensive of the influx and suspect that the Rohingyas are assisting the Muslim-led insurgency in southern Thailand, which has intensified in recent times. Furthermore, nearly 1 million other migrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar are estimated to already be in Thailand. The exceeding numbers of illegal migrants will add to the economic burden and pose a threat to Thai national security. Unlike the other migrants in Thailand who play a major role contributing to the Thai economy (http://bit.ly/vl6ylg), the Rohingyas are only a liability and burden; they cannot get a work permit in Thailand as this requires a nationality verification certificate which the Rohingyas do not have.

Myanmar’s Denial Of Citizenship To Rohingyas

The primary problem and responsibility should lie with Myanmar. Rohingyas are primarily a Muslim ethnic group from the northern part of Arakan province (Rakhine State) of Myanmar. The term ‘Rohingya’ is derived from the Chittagonian dialect (Bengali language), in which the Rakhaine or Arakanese people are called ‘Rohangya’. In this context Myanmar should consider them a national ethnic group. But, they are denied citizenship and not recognized among the 135 national ethnic groups under the 1982 Citizenship Law, leaving them stateless and as illegal immigrants in their own country. Even under the Constitution of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar which was passed in 2008 it is stated that ‘Citizenship, naturalization and revocation of citizenship shall be as prescribed by law’. Their condition has not improved even today; approximately 800,000 Rohingyas living in Northern Arakan state and Rangon are effectively stateless and are subjected to discrimination and exploitation.

Most of the countries are hesitant to host the Rohingyas because they are denied citizenship in Myanmar and because of this, reaching an understanding with the Myanmar government on their resettlement or repatriation is difficult. For instance, earlier in December 2011 an agreement was reached at a meeting between President Thein Sein and Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to repatriate Myanmarese refugees. But the Myanmarese government made it clear that only those refugees who met the key criteria under Myanmar citizenship law would be taken back, leaving the Rohingyas out in the cold.

Thailand has earlier attempted to repatriate refugees to Myanmar (http://bit.ly/s0OVak) but mostly only the Karen and Karenni ethnic groups. The increasing number of Rohingyas will be a serious issue, first, owing to the difficulties in cooperating with Myanmarese government, and second, because of identification. In Thailand’s nine refugee shelters, most of the refugees belong to the Karen and Karenni ethnic groups of Myanmar and only 10-12 per cent is Muslim. As the Rohingyas are not able to register themselves in Thailand, there are no official records on their numbers, because of which resettlement or repatriation becomes impossible.

The plight of the Rohingyas and the growing concern over their influx is not only confined to Myanmar, Bangladesh and Thailand. Other regional powers like India, Indonesia and Malaysia must also engage themselves considering its security implications. The forcible push-backs are a major threat to the maritime as well as border security of these countries. Left with no other option, the Rohingyas are vulnerable to being recruited by sea pirates and involved in arms and drug smuggling.

Panchali Saikia
Research Officer, IPCS
email: panchali@ipcs.org

Wrestling helps Burmese refugee transition to life in Syracuse

2011-12-30T23:39:00.000+07:00

Syracuse.com

The left toe of Tial Thang’s wrestling shoe is held together by several sweeps of white athletic tape. The soles are so worn down, they are bald and discolored. Socks peek through the black shoe material around his toes.

Thang said he’d get new wrestling shoes except for one thing — he doesn’t deserve them.

When Thang wins a wrestling tournament, he said, then he’ll be shoe worthy.

It’s a small window into the uber-competitiveness and drive of Thang, a refugee from Burma and a junior at the Institute of Technology at Syracuse Central. He is also a member of the combined wrestling team for the Syracuse city schools. Thang is The Post-Standard’s honor athlete of the week.

Thang, whose name is pronounced tee-EL tung, wrestles at 152 pounds and is 11-4 this season. He hopes to win a Section III championship and wrestle in the state tournament. Two of Thang’s losses came in overtime. He avenged an early season loss by winning a rematch. In a victory last week against Fayetteville-Manlius, Thang wrestled up and defeated an opponent weighing 170 pounds.

Thang’s homeland of Burma, also called Myanmar, is a military-ruled country of 56 million people. It has been consistently criticized for human rights violations by the United Nations and other rights organizations. The Washington Post called it “one of the most isolated and repressive regimes in the world — a government responsible for killing thousands in a quest to silence dissent.”

Thang and his family fled their Burmese home of Chin Hakha and spent two years in Malaysia before coming to Syracuse in June 2007. Gone was a life of growing corn and rice and raising livestock. Thang’s duties had been tending the family’s five cows.

With the army cracking down on personal and religious freedoms, the family made the most difficult of choices.

Thang’s father (Tawk Cem) escaped first to Malaysia. It took five more years before Thang, his mother (Mang Si) and sister (Holy Sung) could follow. The family reunited in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, and lived there for two years.

“I don’t want to remember,” Thang said of his time in Burma. “It makes me sad.”

After applying through the United Nations for refugee status, the family was resettled in Syracuse, a city that has taken in about 1,500 Burmese refugees, according to Stone Saw, a case worker and interpreter at InterFaith Works of Central New York. Thang said he regularly sees the casualties of the Burmese civil war in Syracuse, the ones without arms, legs, eyes or ears.

“It’s sad. I don’t want to be refugee,” he said.

While learning to deal with Central New York snow and the English language, Thang found comfort in a new athletic endeavor — wrestling. He was a seventh-grader at H.W. Smith School when he was encouraged to give the sport a try. From the first day, he said, he was hooked.

Syracuse city wrestling coach Matt Cosgrove said Thang was pulled up to the junior varsity team and started as a ninth-grader. As a freshman, Thang wrestled with the varsity and finished fifth in the Section III tournament.

A back injury suffered during the Empire State Games in 2010 sidelined him for all of last season. It was a devastating setback. Thang is back, though not particularly happy because he’s got four losses. He is a team captain and continues to work through back pain and occasional confidence issues.

“Every time when I hurt my back, I cried,” he said. “But my father told me, you have to heal it by your heart, not by the doctor or anybody. There’s nobody going to heal up for you. You have to do it by yourself. And I did it.”

Rick Spicer is the athletic director at ITC and calls Thang “a solid student” and one of the school’s nicest kids. Spicer sometimes wishes Thang would be a little less nice in some of his wrestling matches

Thang, who dabbles in muay thai and mixed martial arts, used to bow before matches as a show of respect to his opponent. But he said he’s out there on the mat to take his opponent’s head off because he loathes losing.

That doesn’t happen often. He sends text messages about the outcomes of his matches to relatives around the world, from Norway to Malaysia, Texas and Indianapolis.

Cosgrove said Thang has a unique style. He uses more throws, which comes from the Burmese style of wrestling Thang called “paih.” And at times, Cosgrove said, Thang incorporates movements that “aren’t just pure wrestling movements. When kids wrestle him, it’s a little difficult for them.”

Thang said life has changed since his arrival in Syracuse. He has friends. He has a car. He likes his school. And he has “found something he likes to do,” which is wrestling.

But when his wrestling career ends and he graduates from school, Thang hopes to return to Burma. He doesn’t know when, but he feels the pull of his country and wants to be part of change.

“They need help,” he said. “Maybe I can help somebody down there.”

That’s all down the road. For now, Thang is eyeing the team’s next big meet — the Richard New Memorial Tournament in Canastota on Jan. 7. Who knows, Thang might treat himself to new wrestling shoes if things work out.

“I don’t see myself losing again until the states,” Thang said. “I don’t see myself losing again. That’s my goal, from the first day of wrestling, I want to be the champ.”

Donnie Webb can be reached at 470-2149 or dwebb@syracuse.com.

Myanmar refugees indulge in traditional fare during Christmas

2011-12-24T09:08:00.000+07:00

thestar online

WHILE many celebrate Christmas with turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, fruitcake and pudding, it is not the same at the Myanmar refugee community in Kepong.

For the Yuletide season, their traditional delicacy comprises boiled wild boar, stir-fried potatoes, diced cucumber and wild boar soup.

To some, it may sound repulsive but this is what brings the Zo people of Myanmar together.

David Mung, 31, is the head teacher at Zo Children’s School, a day school for Myanmar refugee children, in Taman Wangsa Permai.

“Boiled wild boar is a delicacy in Myanmar during the holiday season. There is nothing fancy in cooking it. It is just boiled with some salt and pepper and we eat it with rice. For us, it is important that we preserve our culinary heritage despite being in a foreign country,” said Mung.

“In Malaysia, you have many different cultures, not to mention the wide array of local and international cuisines. We cannot afford to splurge on food. This is what unites us as it is a reminder of what we had back home,” added Mung, who fled Myanmar in 2008 with his mother and sister because of religious persecution and the economic crisis. He has been living in Malaysia ever since.

The Zos form a group of Tibeto-Burman people inhabiting the Chin Hills in Myanmar.

“Our people who are good at hunting will be in charge of catching the wild boars in the Chin jungles during Christmas. It was fun for us as a community to take home the wild boar, cook it and eat it together.”

Mung’s mother, Mary, 55, was the one in charge of preparing the home-cooked delicacies.

“It is not easy to cook the wild boar. The meat has to be boiled overnight so it will be tender,” she said.

Before the meal, the children sang along to We Are The World — not the 80’s version but the latest one produced in 2010, via YouTube.

“It’s my way to teach English in a fun way. I also teach them songs from Boney M and Abba, which are my favourite bands,” said Mung.

The tiny Christmas tree at the school, situated on the first floor of a shophouse, was decked with mini-twinkle lights.

“We cannot afford a big, new Christmas tree so ours was donated,” said Mung last Saturday during their annual Christmas party.

Used toys comprising stuffed animals, cars and other items were laid on the floor where each had a number.

“Just like previous Christmas parties, we will include a lucky draw for the children to win some toys, donated by the public.”

There is no air-conditioning at the school which is no bigger than 900sq ft, but that doesn’t stop the festivities from taking place.

While many of us list high-tech gadgets and smartphones on our Christmas wishlist, the Zo children are over the moon to receive any toy, even though wrapped in recycled magazine pages.

Grace, 21, also from the Zo tribe, who works as a waitress at a nearby restaurant, volunteers her time at the school to help Mung.

“I’ve been in Malaysia for the past one year. Being at the school is like being at home for me,” she said.

The setting up the school was not an easy task for Mung.

“It was challenging because we didn’t have any money to buy books and basic school supplies. F,urthermore the parents questioned my qualifications as a teacher.

“But eventually they began to trust me with their children. Many of the parents are uneducated and work as odd-job workers. They needed someone like me to provide their children with the basic education,” said Mung, who runs the school with seven other teachers and volunteers.

The children, aged between three and 14, are taught Bahasa Malaysia, English, Science and Mathematics as well as music from 9am to 1pm. After they go home for lunch, they return in the afternoon to the school for computer lessons.

So far, the school has about 50 children. Mung is also a musician and learned his skills at a church in Myanmar.

“We cannot afford to buy new musical instruments so most of what we have like guitars and keyboards are donated,” Mung said.

Three years have gone by and Mung feels happy and tired at the same time.

“I stuck through the odds and hardships. As the head teacher, I feel it is important to teach the children good values. I look forward to many more happy Christmas occasions like these in future,” he added.

States in revolt on refugee burden

2011-12-10T00:29:00.000+07:00

THE NATIONAL AFFAIRS

JULIA Gillard's plan to move thousands of asylum-seekers out of detention centres and into the community has triggered a war with the two largest states, as the NSW and Victorian governments attacked the policy as a blatant exercise in burden shifting that would stretch police resources and threaten social cohesion.

NSW Police Minister Mike Gallacher yesterday savaged the government's proposal to issue bridging visas to boatpeople, saying it had been undertaken without any consultation with the states, which would be expected to provide many of the services asylum-seekers would need.

In remarks Immigration Minister Chris Bowen described as a "pathetic scare campaign" by two Liberal state governments, Mr Gallacher said the policy compromised the welfare of asylum-seekers, who risked being dumped in the community without adequate support.

"No one picked up the phone; no one wrote to me," Mr Gallacher told The Weekend Australian.

"Some of these people, just simply by being released here, could find themselves either being the victims of crime, or indeed coming to police attention themselves. There's simply been no discussion between the state government and the federal government in terms of our preparedness to handle these matters."

The comments came as briefing papers obtained by The Weekend Australian revealed the breadth of those concerns.

In one document provided to the NSW Liberal government at the end of last month, the NSW Community Relations Commission warned that concerns had been expressed that some of the unaccompanied "minors" released into the community appeared to be "significantly older" than their declared age of 16 or 17.
"In some cases these students appear to be in their 20s," the commission reported.

The commission went on to note that schools had a duty of care to their students and that it "may not be appropriate for numbers of 20-something adults to be in the same classroom with younger children".
"It is essential that (the Immigration Department) take steps to more accurately determine the age of these students," the commission warned.

The commission also said it was likely the program would result in increased costs for health, translation services and transport, and warned of the added burden on police.

Mr Bowen's spokesman said the office was unaware of any claims that adults were attending NSW schools and would investigate any such claims brought to its attention.

In October Mr Bowen announced he would issue a minimum of 100 bridging visas a month to boatpeople whose refugee claims had not been finalised.

But the figure is expected to be higher as it will depend on the rate of boat arrivals, which have escalated rapidly since the failure of the major parties to strike a deal on offshore processing.
Most asylum-seekers will settle in Sydney and Melbourne.

The decision to release boatpeople followed the High Court ruling scuppering the government's refugee swap with Malaysia and the opposition's refusal to support laws circumventing the ruling. However, the decision was also a response to chronic overcrowding and disorder in Australia's detention centres and a recognition that the network simply could not cope with any more boat arrivals.

So far only 27 visas have been issued to asylum-seekers, although that figure does not include those already in the community as part of a longstanding policy to release vulnerable new arrivals into society.

Victorian Minister for Multicultural Affairs and Citizenship Nicholas Kotsiras said he was concerned that settling asylum-seekers in the community without additional funding for mental health, education, and housing services "may greatly disadvantage asylum-seekers by dumping them into communities without adequate support and without any concern for their welfare".

"Without providing additional support, the federal government will be working against the better interests of asylum-seekers themselves, the communities they will be placed in and social cohesion in Victoria," Mr Kotsiras told The Weekend Australian.

NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell yesterday backed his Police Minister, saying he was "distressed" at the lack of consultation and the extra pressure it would place on state community services.

Mr O'Farrell said his objections had "nothing to do" with immigration generally, which he supported. "It has everything to do with a federal government that, even in this area, is prepared to shift the cost of its incompetent decisions on to the states," Mr O'Farrell said.

The attack drew an angry response from Mr Bowen's office, with a spokesman dismissing the criticisms as a political attack on Labor and accusing the O'Farrell and Baillieu governments of deliberately misleading voters.

The spokesman said the states had been told they would not incur any additional costs, with the Immigration Department funding basic assistance programs.

"These claims are misleading and a cynical political ploy typical of the Coalition," the spokesman said. He said there were 9000 people already on bridging visas, although he acknowledged that figure included other migrants, such as visa overstayers, and was spread across the country.

The policy has generated concern among the NSW and Victorian Coalition governments about the flow-on effects of housing thousands of asylum-seekers in the community.

None of the state government officials contacted by The Weekend Australian expressed any concern about taking more migrants. But they are angry at the manner in which the federal government's new policy has been implemented.

Life in Limbo for Chin Refugees in India

2011-12-01T08:44:00.000+07:00

INDIA INK

Biathleng and his family with members of the Chin community at their single-room home in Budella, Delhi.

Thirty-year-old Biathleng fled Myanmar’s Chin State for Delhi in June, with three children and a teenage wife. “I have an appointment for my refugee card,” he says carefully, when asked about his new life.
Like many other Chins, one of Myanmar’s largest ethnic minorities, his family walked for two days until they crossed the border into India, he says. They then shared a vehicle from Mizoram to Guwahati, Assam, and caught a train to the Indian capital, fleeing persecution and impoverishment in their heavily militarized homeland.

An estimated 86,000 Chins have come to India since 1988, 10,000 of them to Delhi. The majority arrived in the last five years. For many, including Biathleng and his family, their problems have only grown since his arrival.

A lack of clean drinking water left the family with jaundice, diarrhea and dysentery. Usually ill, they rarely leave their single room (shared by nine, for the equivalent of $38 a month) in a chawl – a building containing several tenements – in Budella, Vikaspuri, the largest of several dusty neighbourhoods in west Delhi that shelter beleaguered Chin refugees. Except for church on Sunday and sometimes a little ethnic community school for the older boy, they avoid going outside because of the pollution. Language is a barrier, as they are not fluent in Hindi or English primarily spoken in the capital. In any case, they feel they must stay home to guard what little they own.

Citizenship is not an option, though when the United Nations High Commission for Refugees issues Biathleng’s card, he will at least be eligible for medical reimbursement and offered U.N.H.C.R. protection from potential deportation. Nearly half the roughly 22,000 refugees and asylum seekers under the U.N.H.C.R.’s mandate in India are from Myanmar, and a large majority of them are Chin.

Why do Chins continue to try to squeeze into the world’s most populous democracy, where hundreds of millions already live below the international poverty line?

Many say they have too much to lose not to leave home. Chin State has been ravaged by military rule since 1962 in Myanmar, also known as Burma. Ethnic minorities like the Christian Chins and Kayans, Kachins, Arakan and Mon have suffered extrajudicial killings, forced labor and worse at the hands of “Burmanization” and are finally being driven out by famine, says the Chin Refugee Committee (C.R.C.), a small Delhi-based organization established in 1996 to offer advocacy and help to fellow Chins. India, just over the border, is the closest sanctuary.

An estimated 70 percent of the 500,000 Chins in Chin State live below the poverty line, according to the C.R.C., and they are discriminated against by potential employers as Christians and members of an ethnic minority.

Humanitarian aid has pulled out, the C.R.C. adds, due to restrictions placed on international groups, including United Nations organizations, by the military.

Myanmar’s first civilian president, Thein Sien, who visited Delhi in October to strengthen ties with India, has been pledging liberalization since he was elected in March. The world’s eyes are on his country today, as Hillary Rodham Clinton becomes the first U.S. secretary of state to visit Myanmar in the decades since the military gained power. Her trip involves fact-finding about reported political reform. But Chins in west Delhi are not convinced the country has changed.

“Until the Constitution is changed, the military can always take over,” says Bonai, a 25-year-old political science student who is president of the C.R.C. “We can’t go back; we demonstrated against the regime, so if we go back we will be arrested.”

Not that things are much better for them here. According to a report released by the C.R.C. last month, only half of Delhi’s Chins are recognized as refugees by the U.N.H.C.R. A mere 20 percent are employed, and, as the report chronicles in 35 case studies, they are vulnerable to ill health, sexual harassment, violence, police indifference and exploitative employers and landlords.

“We are minority people, we are different,” Bonai says. “The police cannot solve this.”

Impoverished Indians are sometimes resentful and begrudge Chins’ basic communal rights, according to Rinengi Varte, an Indian C.R.C. volunteer who hails from Mizoram across the border. When the neighborhood’s water supply arrives, some Chins tell her, they are made to wait until the local Indians have gotten theirs. Rickshaw drivers often assume she, too, is Chin when she visits, and treat her contemptuously as a result, she adds.

Sunita Tyagi, a businesswoman who runs a shop in Budella and rents 20 rooms to Chins, feels the problem is different. “On their own, anyone can be bad or good, I have no problem with the Burmese people, I like many of them,’’ she said. “We cannot always speak to each other, since they don’t speak Hindi, so sometimes there are misunderstandings. And sometimes they drink and pick fights, the young men. In one month, we have had three big fights.”

“Some young people drink out of depression and worry, and perhaps take drugs,” agrees a Chin social worker and former C.R.C. president, Steven Tluang.

Bonai says many Chins work as cleaners in the Janakpuri district center shopping complex or in illegal garment factory or electronic repair jobs, where they receive the equivalent of $28 to $38 a month. Local residents earn 25 to 50 percent more, he says. Yet there are few other options. Biathleng hopes to join his three brothers, who hold low-paying factory jobs, when his health improves. For now, when his child cries out, “I’m hungry!” his face is blank.

Many Chins wait until day’s end to scavenge in the market, competing with dogs for the leftovers of India’s leftovers. Out late at night, they risk muggings and sexual assault.

“We are aware of the many challenges that refugees, including Chin refugees face,” Montserrat Feixas Vihe, chief of mission for the U.N.H.C.R. in India said. “We are trying to focus on prevention and have an ongoing awareness raising campaign on how to be more careful in a large city like Delhi. In addition, we work with the local police and neighbourhood associations to ensure a more protective environment. ”

India’s Ministry of External Affairs did not respond to several requests for comment.

In Budella and four nearby neighborhoods (Hastsal Village and Jeevan Park in Uttam Nagar, Asalatpur village in Janakpuri and Dabri in Sitapuri), many Chins linger for years, waiting for the chance to attain official refugee status and its modest advantages.

In the meanwhile, the community finds occasional charity in non-governmental organizations and a little help from three U.N.H.C.R.-recognized organizations, but not much more.

The C.R.C., with a small office of 25 volunteers in Janakpuri , is funded by the Euro-Burma Office and offers some support. It sometimes works with Burmese Women Delhi, a crisis center in Budella with a staff of three, dealing with rape, assault and gender discrimination.

Many of the women who run it are victims themselves. One 36-year-old worker says she fled her hometown, Falam, after a soldier raped her. She never saw her children again and her husband married his employer’s daughter, she recounts.

In her previous life, she had a home, two children and a husband; in this one, she has one pink room, a grimy teddy bear and the friendship of fellow exiles who unite in Christian faith. A feeling of anonymity prevails; Chins are often mistaken here for Nepalis or northeastern Indians. “We are here, but no one knows,’’ she says. “We want people to know.”

Bullies add to refugees' misery

2011-11-29T00:49:00.000+07:00

New Straits Time

The three sketches are by a Myanmar refugee child at a refugee learning centre in Kuala Lumpur which depict the abuse and discrimination she has experienced as she struggles to regain her footing in a foreign land.

Not only is bullying morally wrong, but it can also destroy childhood for children, says Unicef

WARM and friendly, Malaysians are often commended for our willingness to lend to the less fortunate.'

But why does a young girl who had come to our shores two years ago to seek a brighter future, clench her teeth and sob quietly when asked about her experience in Malaysia?

Dawn had just turned 15 when she braved the high seas in a cramped fishing boat. She fled a homeland that has been embroiled in internal conflict since 1948 -- Myanmar.

With her mother and an 11-year-old younger sister, the three held on tightly to each other and tried not to think about the added risk of being captured by slave-traders prowling the waters.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, they arrived in bright, sunny Malaysia.

With the help of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the family of three was reunited with their father in a refugee centre in downtown Kuala Lumpur. They have sought shelter for the last two years in this unmarked building, and there now seems to be a semblance of normalcy in their lives.

Although their movements are restricted and they fear being detained if they venture too far from the area surrounding their refugee centre, for once, Dawn can go to school and is learning English.

Her yearning to learn more was evident as she listened attentively to every question posed to her, shaping her mouth silently around some words to familiarise herself.

Perhaps this insatiable thirst for knowledge is what continues to push her to take the 20-minute trek to a school nearby every day -- though the journey often brings them face to face with a bunch of young, local bullies.

"They throw stones at us. They pull our hair sometimes and shout at us -- something very bad. Sometimes my sister will go and cry in the toilet."

Jim, head of the refugee centre where Dawn is taking shelter now, said cases of refugee children being bullied was nothing new.

"Even our adults are robbed, cursed at, looked down on. We fled our homeland because we had no choice but to leave.

"Here, we thought we can have a chance...but...we just wonder now, why is our life so hard?"

When asked if she still believed that there was a brighter future ahead, Dawn looked down on her lap and let the tears fall, unhindered.

Watching the girl and reflecting on the plight of his people, Jim, a 45-year-old, also teared up.

It is reported that there are now some 95,000 refugees and asylum-seekers registered with UNHCR in Malaysia, fleeing persecution and conflict from many countries including Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Since 1989, Nov 20 is Universal Children's Day. Malaysia, being a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, also observes this day as one of celebration of the well-being of children.

"Child rights mean that children themselves have to learn to respect each other's rights," said Unicef representative to Malaysia, Hans Olsen. "Children's opinions and actions are influenced by what adults and friends around them think, do and say. Prejudice is learnt by living and observing it in society; a child may grow up believing that this is how life must be."

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has so far identified more than 50 grounds of discrimination against children based either on their identity or the identity of their parents. These include discrimination against gender, race, citizenship, family background and income, ability, and HIV status. Discrimination against these children may mean poking fun at them, or not allowing them to participate in play or other activities.

Names have been changed to protect identity

Myanmar refugees no longer see the need to hide with registration

2011-11-10T10:46:00.000+07:00

thestar online

PETALING JAYA: It has always been a cat-and-mouse game with the authorities for Myanmar refugees and asylum-seekers in Malaysia.

Siang Chung, 58, has been arrested and detained three times in the six years that he was in Malaysia.

“Once, I had to spend four months in jail because there was no proof that I was a refugee,” said the father of six, who only received his United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) card after his third arrest in 2008.

Record purposes: Myanmar asylum-seekers and refugees waiting for their turn to be registered with the Chin Refugee Committee in Kuala Lumpur.

He still lives in fear that his family members, who have not received their card, could be arrested.

Another asylum-seeker who only wanted to be known as Awi claimed that his employer exploited him because he did not have a refugee card.

“My boss would threaten me and refused to pay my salary,” he said. “I am happy that the Malaysian Government is doing something to help us.”

Awi hoped that after his registration, he would not be exploited anymore.
Phun Hmung, 40, was lucky because when he first arrived in Malaysia, UNHCR was conducting mobile registrations.

He received his refugee card almost immediately and has a job servicing air-conditioning units for the past three years.

Chin Refugee Committee medical coordinator Patrick Sang Bawi Hnin said most asylum-seekers were afraid of raids because many had been arrested in the past.

“Some were detained for months and sent off to detention camps for indefinite periods,” he said.

Patrick said with the new exercise, arrested asylum-seekers and refugees would be able to prove their status.

“We have had a hard life. We are thankful to the Malaysian Government for helping us and we hope this move will improve the quality of life for us.”

Shan Refugee Organisation chairman Sai Kham Noon said: “Sometimes we would be stopped by the police on the road and asked if we’re illegal immigrants. They would not accept our UNHCR refugee card, so the registration would be a good move since they could easily identify us.”

The move to register refugees and asylum-seekers is expected to commence in January and will involve some 94,800 of them.

Malaysia to introduce biometric checks for Sepang flights

2011-11-01T07:05:00.001+07:00

Todayonline

KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia's Immigration Department plans to introduce biometric checks on board flights at the Low-Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT) in Sepang, in what it says will be the first of its kind in the world. The pilot project is expected to start next month.

Immigration Director-General Alias Ahmad said that passengers cleared on board their planes will not be required to clear immigration again once inside the terminal.

Mr Alias said his department will first work with AirAsia, the LCCT's main operator, and expand the programme if it proves successful. The on-board checks will begin with flights considered low-risk.

"We hope all passengers would have already been checked when they land at the LCCT," Mr Alias told Malaysian newspaper The Star on Saturday. "This will reduce congestion in the terminal."

The LCCT handles up to 20 flights and 3,800 passengers an hour during peak periods. Travellers have complained of queueing for up to 45 minutes to clear immigration at the LCCT. Mr Alias said that waiting times at immigration counters has been brought down to no more than 15 minutes currently.

LCCT's operator, Malaysia Airports Holdings, expects the terminal to serve about 18 million passengers this year, an increase of 20 per cent of its traffic last year. Agencies

Malaysia and Burma plan migrant swap

2011-10-20T08:46:00.000+07:00

The Malaysian government has said that it plans to “swap” detained migrants with Burma, causing concern among rights activists about the safety of those returning to Burma.

Malaysian Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein was quoted in the local press as saying the scheme will “help reduce the numbers [of migrants] in our detention centres.” Kuala Lumpur-based rights activist Pranom Somwong has said that serious problems over “transparency” with such dealings for both countries make the scheme “unacceptable”.

She raised questions about the safety of detainees, many of whom she believes would or should be classified as asylum seekers due to the deplorable record of the Burmese regime, and that many Burmese had fled for political as well as economic reasons.
Malaysia is a popular destination for Burmese seeking work and safety, with large numbers of ethnic Chin and Rohingya attempting to gain asylum in the country.

The Rohingya minority group from western Burmaare systematically discriminated against, with the majority refused even citizenship papers. Burma’s immigration minister, Khin Yi, told parliament recently that the Rohingya in the Maungdaw township of Arakan state are “assumed to be Bengalis … [who] have shared common religion, culture, appearance and language with their counterparts [in Bangladesh].”
Malaysian rights group Suaram meanwhile described the Burmese government as “tyrannical” and “undemocratic,” and condemned the scheme.

Malaysia is home to approximately 400,000 Burmese with around 87,000 recognised by the UN refugee agency, although Malaysia’s ongoing refusal to sign the 1951 treaty on refugees means many of these are still harassed by authorities. Human Rights Watch said last month that a pledge by Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak to do away with repressive emergency acts that include detention without trial must be followed through.
Pranom claims that few of the details of the deal are known. This is a problem that often plagues refugees and asylum seekers, with a lack of clarity on such schemes leaving migrants in a legal limbo.

Malaysia’s Bernama newspaper quoted Hishammuddin as calling for “cooperation” to make the “repatriation process run smoothly”. He also reportedly called for a joint working committee between the two governments. The Burmese labour ministry has recently sought to regularise management of the large numbers of Burmese who migrate for work.

Malaysia is dependent on migrant labour for its manufacturing sector but has faced criticism over its handling of migrants. In 2009 the US State Department downgraded the country to a Tier Three nation because of allegations that officials had taken bribes and sold detained migrants.

Little information as to who the Burmese would send back to Malaysia as part of the “swap deal” was made available. Few Malaysians are believed to be detained in Burma.

1.3 million registered illegals to be absorbed into five sectors

2011-10-05T02:50:00.000+07:00

Source: BERNAMA

KUALA LUMPUR: Five employment sectors have been given the green light to hire 1.3 million illegal immigrants registered under the 6P amnesty programme to fill up job vacancies.

Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein said the five sectors were manufacturing, plantations, agriculture, construction and services, with 15 types of jobs available for them in the service sector.

"I'm confident that the 1.3 million unemployed illegals can be distributed among these five sectors, as I was told over 1.3 million workers are needed.

"Therefore, the 1.3 million who have registered will be placed in these sectors which Malaysians have no interest in filling up," he told reporters after a meeting with state immigration directors in Bukit Aman, here, today.

However, he said, job offers and distribution were not under his ministry's jurisdiction but the other ministries involved.

"Absorbing them into these sectors is an effort to balance out our economic needs, but it must be done accurately and according to what was outlined by the prime minister."

He said the 1.3 million illegals were part of the 2.3 million foreign immigrants who registered under the 6P programme.

"Some of the 1.3 million people had entered the country illegally, some had expired work permits, while others had entered using their passports but handed their passports to syndicates or their passports taken away by the syndicates.

"With the number of illegals registered, I feel that the process of absorbing those unemployed will become another Key Performance Indicator (KPI) to be implemented under the 6P programme," he added.
With accurate data to allow monitoring, he said, no problem would arise that could affect national security regardless of the number of foreigners in the country.

"The illegals cannot run away because the biometric registration system under the 6P programme has recorded their biometric data or thumbprints in the databank.

"By not going through the biometric process, I believe the flood of illegal immigrants into Malaysia can create a big risk, so the 6P programme is the best move to overcome any issue involving them," he said.

Hishammuddin disclosed that the programme's second post-mortem would be held tomorrow at a meeting to be chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and to be participated by 14 ministries and agencies.

Among the important matters to be discussed at the meeting is whether the legalisation process will use the current illegal immigrant employment policy or consider the creation of a special policy for the process.
On Bangladesh's High Commissioner to Malaysia, A.K.M. Atiqur Rahman, who allegedly received threats after Bangladeshis in Malaysia were not allowed to use agents to register in the 6P programme, he said 24-hour protection and surveillance would be provided.

"I had spoken to him last week, and yes, he received threats from certain disgruntled quarters.

"With the cooperation of the Bangladesh High Commission, we have registered 400,000 of their nationals who entered the country legally or illegally," he said

Australia offers asylum seekers up to A$ 4,000 grants to return home

2011-08-30T12:12:00.000+07:00

thestar online

MELBOURNE: The Australian government is offering asylum seekers facing deportation to Malaysia up to A$4,000 (about RM12,725) in grants to return home instead.

The government has handed the grants to 77 asylum seekers since the "reintegration assistance" programme was introduced in November, The Daily Telegraph in Sydney reported Tuesday.

The programme provides failed asylum seekers with cash and other payments to go back to their country of origin, and hundreds are expected to take packages this financial year after the government set the programme's budget at A$7mil (about RM22.2 mil).

While the majority of the grants will be taken up by asylum seekers currently in detention who are refused protection visas, the Australian Immigration Department has confirmed that those arriving under the Malaysian Solution can also take up the offer.

"It encourages voluntary return, which represents a significant cost-saving to the government compared to enforced removals," the department spokesman for Immigration Minister Chris Bowen is quoted as saying.
If they accept the packages, which can include business start-up grants and up to A$550 (about RM1,750) in cash, they would not be counted in the "up to 800" asylum seekers in the Australian government's deal with Malaysia which is being challenged in the High Court.

The court's decision is due on Wednesday. - Bernama

Nunu Sung fights for custody of baby she abandoned

2011-08-13T11:59:00.000+07:00

Chicago Tribune

The imprisoned mother of a 2-year-old boy named Joshua is fighting for custody of the child she left whimpering in a neighbor's yard in Wheaton shortly after his birth.

Nunu Sung, 26, is due to be paroled in January after serving part of a three-year prison term for lying to police about her pregnancy.

Sung pleaded guilty in October 2010 to felony obstruction of justice. In exchange, prosecutors dropped a charge of endangering the life of a child and agreed they would not seek to terminate the woman's parental rights.

On Wednesday, DuPage County Circuit Judge Blanche Hill Fawell denied a request by Sung's attorneys to find prosecutors in contempt because they now are involved in terminating Sung's parental rights in favor of a Wheaton couple who are the child's foster parents.

Fawell said prosecutors may have erred in making the promise but they were legally obligated to get involved in the parental termination proceedings. Sung's only option now is to file a post-conviction request to reopen her plea and sentence, the judge said.

Sung, of Myanmar, has drawn support from family members and a Wheaton church attended by other immigrants from that Southeast Asian country formerly known as Burma. Supporters say she escaped the war-torn nation after Catholic Charities brought her to the United States about three years before Joshua was born.

Her attorneys said authorities have not allowed Sung to see Joshua since she was sent to prison in 2010.
"She came here to escape the injustices of a corrupt government, and she ends up falling victim to the injustice of not being given the full benefit of her plea agreement," said Jennifer Wiesner, one of her lawyers. "Her main priority always has been that her parental rights not be terminated."

The Wheaton foster parents declined to comment, but their attorney, Chuck Rohde, said they simply want what is best for Joshua.

In recent juvenile court proceedings, a civil attorney appointed by the judge as Joshua's guardian filed paperwork to terminate Sung's parental rights based largely on the crime.

The ruling came two months after DuPage Associate Judge C. Stanley Austin ruled the goal of the civil proceedings should no longer be to reunite mother and child. Rather, it should be to place the child in substitute care pending termination of Sung's parental rights, the judge said.

Austin has not ruled on the parental termination petition, but during a July hearing he denied Sung's request to dismiss it.

In June 2009 a Wheaton man noticed the newborn with its umbilical cord still attached after his dog spotted the child under a tree and barked.

Prosecutors alleged the child might have died if he hadn't been discovered that morning.

"The baby, who was left outside on the cold, hard ground, had a body temperature in the low 80s and was hypothermic," Assistant State's Attorney Anne Therieau wrote earlier this year in court records. "But for a dog, who was let out in the morning hours, this baby would have died."

After his release from the hospital, Joshua was placed in the custody of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.

Prosecutors said Sung relocated from Texas to Wheaton to live with cousins after the child's father said he had no interest in helping to raise him.

Sung's attorneys said she hid her pregnancy because she was afraid she would be punished and scorned by her family and other community members.

Immigration officials are expected to interview Sung after her release from prison. Her attorneys are investigating their legal options if she faces a deportation fight.

Last call for illegal immigrants registration

2011-08-13T11:39:00.000+07:00

thestar online

PUTRAJAYA: Illegal immigrants who fail to register and legalise themselves under the current amnesty period will risk being detained under a major enforcement exercise that is scheduled to start in November.
However, Home Ministry secretary-general Tan Sri Mahmood Adam said that under the amnesty programme, the Government will guarantee that illegal immigrants would not be arrested if they come out and register themselves.

He said to date, 1.8 million legal and illegal workers have registered until the close of the registration on Thursday, with 885,156 being the legal workers.

It is estimated that there are at least 1.5 million illegal foreign workers in the country.

“It (registration exercise) should be seen as the last opportunity for them (illegal immigrants to be legalised) before the Government mounts a major enforcement operation in November,” he said.

Mahmood also announced in a statement yesterday that the deadline for biometric registration of illegal foreign workers under the 6P amnesty programme had been extended by a week to Aug 21.

He also called on state authorities, government agencies and all community leaders in districts, sub-districts and villages to come up with a good mechanism to convince the illegal immigrants in their areas to come out and register.

“The main priority is to convince them (the illegals) of the Government's guarantee that they will not be arrested and it should be seen as the last opportunity for them before the Government mounts the major enforcement operation in November,” he said.

Mahmood said the decision to extend the deadline was made following Thursday's call by Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein for the 6P Implementation Committee to consider extending the registration period.

He said the Government had also decided that every illegal immigrant who registered through an agent should refer and use their services again for the amnesty period scheduled for mid-September.
The 6P programme entails registration, legalising, amnesty, monitoring, enforcement and deportation of illegal immigrants.

The biggest number of workers registered were Indonesians, followed by Bangladeshis, Myanmar, Indians, Nepalese, Filipinos, Cambodians, Pakistanis, Vietnamese, Thais, Sri Lankans, Chinese and others.

Australia To Be Flooded With Refugees From Malaysia

2011-07-29T12:07:00.001+07:00

Which Way To Pay

Many refugees in Malaysia have indicated that they will consider paying to be smuggled into Australia as they believe they will receive better treatment on their return to the country through the new asylum seeker swap deal. The new agreement, costing $292 million, was signed in Kuala Lumpur at the beginning of the week, stipulating that the first 800 asylum seekers caught coming into Australia will be exported back to Malaysia in 72 hours.

Anyone caught after this initial quota will be held in transit facilities for any time up to 45 days, until which time they will be moved back into the Malaysian community and given work rights, and access to health care and education.

The deal has especially been criticised by Amnesty International, who claim the swap in practice will encourage refugees into boats, and will even create an internal hierarchy in the refugee system, with two brackets with different rights. There are already 90,000 refugees in Malaysia, who are living without these benefits, with many having to turn to illegal work in order to provide for their families.

The new agreement could actually act as an incentive for refugees to take boats to Australia, rather than the intended deterrent.

There have been reports from Tamil asylum seekers, who have been taking refuge in Malaysia for several years, claiming that they are angry that those who break the law and pay smugglers to take them to Australia will end up with more rights than those who do not. The scheme could be interpreted as rewarding the dishonest for abusing the system, but as the plan was hurriedly made in desperation, cracks emerging are inevitable.

UN officer endorses setting up of MACC's video interview rooms

2011-07-29T12:01:00.000+07:00

nst.com

KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission's move to set up video interview rooms (VIR) is an important and appropriate measure.

This endorsement came from Desmostenes Chryssikos, crime prevention and criminal justice officer of the Corruption and Economic Crime Section, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

The setting up of the VIR was in line with the UN Convention on Corruption, Chryssikos said after the closing of a three-day UN Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) at the MACC Academy here yesterday.

"This set-up is effective and protects witnesses. It is a positive step forward and Malaysia is the second country after the Independent Commission Against Corruption Hong Kong to set up this system of interviewing witnesses."

Chryssikos said the system would also encourage others with knowledge of corruption cases to come forward since they knew they would be protected.

He added that the UN was ready to help MACC monitor the VIR system as well as provide guidance.

MACC Academy assistant commissioner Abdul Razak Hamzah said the objective of the UNCAC, attended by 19 foreign and 14 local participants, was to equip and train them to become proficient.

"This convention is legally binding on the 156 state parties or countries which had ratified the UNCAC.

"Malaysia has complied with most of the 71 articles in the UNCAC. The Whistle Blowers Act 2010 was the latest addition," he said.

Amnesty plan for illegal immigrants to take off on Aug 1

2011-07-13T00:20:00.000+07:00

thestar online

PUTRAJAYA: Aug 1 is the new date for the start of the 6P amnesty programme for illegal immigrants.
The exercise, which was supposed to have kicked off Monday, was postponed to make way for the implementation of the biometric registration of legal foreign workers, from Wednesday until July 31.

Home Ministry secretary-general Tan Sri Mahmood Adam, in a statement Tuesday, said besides laying the groundwork of the 6P plan, the biometric registration was to deal with legal foreign workers who ran away from their employers with the intention of being given amnesty through other employers.

The 6P programme entails registration, whitening, forgiveness, monitoring, enforcement and deportation of illegal immigrants.

Mahmood said with the biometric registration, the Immigration Department would be able to identify legal foreign workers who had run away from their employers, including those who had removed their identification documents and were using different identities.

Those identified as such would not be allowed to participate in the whitening process and would be advised to return to their original employers or be deported.

Some 1.8 million legal foreign workers are employed in the country.

"The registration of foreign workers will be fully implemented by the Immigration Department at its offices throughout the peninsular starting tomorrow (Wednesday).

"All employers are required to ensure that all foreign workers employed by them register through the biometric system. No fee will be imposed," he added. - Bernama

Registration of illegal immigrants nationwide put off for now

2011-07-12T11:21:00.000+07:00

thestar online

KUALA LUMPUR: The registration of illegal foreign workers nationwide ahead of an amnesty exercise has been shelved indefinitely until all parties are ready for it, said Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein.

“We have decided to postpone the registration of illegal workers under the biometric system until further notice.

“There are several technical issues and national security matters that we have to sort out first,” he told reporters yesterday.

Hishammuddin said the exercise would be held only after all parties were sure that the process could be carried out without any glitch.

He cited the example of the introduction of the biometric system at 67 immigration entry points nationwide recently when minor glitches marred the whole exercise.

“The process went on smoothly except for two entry points between Malaysia and Singapore. We learnt that one or two glitches can affect the entire process,” he said.

Hishammuddin did not fix a time frame on when the amnesty would be implemented.

The exercise, aimed at encouraging an estimated two million illegal workers to register by being fingerprinted via a biometric system, was supposed to have started yesterday.

It was meant to grant them amnesty so that they could work legally or leave the country without being caught and jailed.

Burmese refugees joyful despite persecution, say visitors

2011-07-06T12:47:00.000+07:00

Associate Baptist Press

By Jim White

Tuesday, July 05, 2011

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (ABP) -- Baptist World Alliance President John Upton was part of a seven-member delegation to visit refugees near the border between Thailand and Myanmar while en route to meetings this week in Malaysia.

Upton, executive director of the Baptist General Association, described meeting Blooming Night, a Myanmar refugee living just across the Thai border who has spent most of her 50-something years hiding in the jungle. When she isn’t in actual hiding, she is bringing relief to her people -- the Karen -- through physical supplies and through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

“She is a missionary to her own people,” Upton said.

The Karen are among several minority ethnic groups in the remote mountains and jungles of Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) who have been fighting government control since the country’s independence from Britain in 1948 – one of the world’s longest-running separatist insurgencies.

For decades thousands of refugees have fled the conflict, landing in camps just across the border in Thailand. The Thailand Burma Border Consortium, a non-governmental organization that works in the region, estimates as many as 150,000 people live in temporary settlements. Thai officials say they want to return them to Myanmar.

“The conditions there are like something you would imagine from 200 years ago,” Upton said.

Patsy Davis, executive director of the BWA’s women’s department and organizer of the trip, agreed the conditions are grim. “The people literally have nothing. Nothing. We went to offer humanitarian aid, but mostly we went to encourage Blooming Night. We wanted to show her that Baptist women around the world support her.”

An estimated 30 to 40 percent of Karens are Christians, and Davis said for many of the refugees, “Their only joy is Jesus.”

Davis said the number of churches in the camp has increased from 12 two years ago to 20, in addition to the church where the BWA delegation worshiped.

That worship service, attended by about 500 people, was a wet one, she and Upton said. It had rained torrentially all night but had cleared by morning. The sanctuary was flooded when debris clogged the river and it spilled over its banks.

“Water started coming in the back of the church,” said Upton. “During a prayer, it would advance another pew. During one long prayer it moved up three rows. It came all the way up to the front row of pews.

People in the back were sitting in water almost knee-deep and nobody knew how deep it was going to get. But nobody left.”

He added, laughing, “It started receding while I was preaching, so I figure I preached the flood back.”
The singing in the two-hour service is what impressed Davis and Upton most, as well as the palpable joy in the faces of the worshipers.

“One lady, whose husband and child were killed by the soldiers, greeted us with such a smile you would never know the tragedies she experienced,” Davis said.

The day started at 5 a.m. “when they were singing during the prayer time,” Davis added. “At 6:30 was the women’s Bible study, and that was just the beginning of the day!”

Davis said the churches in the camps include descendants of Karen converted to Christianity by Ann and Adoniram Judson, American Baptist missionaries who spent 40 years in Burma during the first half of the 19th century.

“They [the churches] learned well the lesson of sacrifice,” said Davis. “Three of the 20 churches gave an offering of $500 to the BWA women’s department. These are people who have nothing who did this. We should be totally ashamed.”

Christians in the camps have started a Bible college and seminary and are ministering to abused women and children. In addition, Blooming Night and others have helped resettle refugees in other countries, including the United States.

Rela ceased operations against illegal immigrants in March

2011-06-27T01:08:00.000+07:00

PUTRAJAYA: The People's Volunteer Corps (Rela) has ceased operation against illegal immigrants since March, said director-general Datuk Mustafa Ibrahim.

The decision was made after considering the good and bad effects of the operation conducted since 2005, he added.

“There were allegations that Rela members collected money from illegal immigrants, farm owners, restaurant owners and employers at construction sites.

“We investigated them but some were baseless. If anyone still asks for protection money and conduct operations, please report to the authorities,” he said yesterday.

Mustafa said Rela was willing to assist enforcement agencies, such as the police and immigration, to check the influx of illegal immigrants.

Asked whether Rela would be involved with the amnesty programme for illegal immigrants, he said it would not be directly involved but was willing to help.

Mustafa also said Rela was not involved with a former Malaysian volunteers welfare body which offered post of officers and honorary members at RM5,000 to RM50,000.

He said Rela lodged a report at the Putrajaya police headquarters on June 13 denying its involvement with the body.

The actual status of the body is not known. It is believed to have been in operation since last month and was located in Precinct 9 and Sentul, Kuala Lumpur.

Source - Bernama

Malaysia: Arrest Sudanese President wanted for war crimes

2011-06-16T11:43:00.000+07:00

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

News Release
June 13, 2011

The Malaysian government should immediately withdraw its invitation to Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, and arrest him if he travels to Malaysia, Amnesty International said today.

The Malaysian government announced yesterday that President al-Bashir will participate in the Langkawi International Dialogue, an economic forum being held in Malaysia from 19 to 21 June 2011.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for al-Bashir for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur.

"Malaysia should not turn itself into a port of call for fugitives from international justice" said Donna Guest, Deputy Asia Pacific Director at Amnesty International.

"The Malaysian government should bar Bashir from its territory, and arrest him if he turns up."

Amnesty International welcomed Malaysia’s announcement on 21 March of its intention to become a state party to the Rome Statute and to recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. In his announcement, Malaysian Law Minister Nazri Aziz said, "This is a declaration that Malaysia rejects war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide."

When the UN Security Council referred the situation in Darfur to the ICC in 2005, it urged all states to cooperate fully with the Court. Although Malaysia is not yet party to the Rome Statute of the ICC, it should arrest Omar al-Bashir should he arrive in Malaysia, Amnesty International said.

"Malaysia’s invitation to Omar al-Bashir flies in the face of its decision to join the ICC," said Guest. "Instead of hosting people wanted by the ICC, Malaysia should reaffirm its commitment to justice."

For further information John Tackaberry,

please contact Media Relations

(613)744-7667 #236

Agents to help register, legalise foreign workers

2011-06-09T12:00:00.000+07:00

nst.com.my

PUTRAJAYA: The Home Ministry will recruit agents to help facilitate in registering and legalising the illegal immigrants in the country.

Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein said under the new programme, the immigrants would be registered using the biometric fingerprint scanning system before being re-assigned to the sectors which needed the foreign labour.

"Their biometric details will be taken and they must return to their home countries when their stay expires," he said after officiating the sponsorship presentation of the second General Police Special Equipment Exhibition and Convention (GPEC) Asia 2011 at the Putrajaya Maritime Centre yesterday.

Hishammuddin urged companies, associations and bodies keen to become agents to apply online on the ministry's official website but warned that strict vetting would be carried out to ensure only genuine agents were appointed.
"The companies should not act as outsourcing companies as their role is to help the government reach out to the illegal immigrants. We wish to avoid similar problems faced in the past when we outsourced these tasks.

"Enough of taking advantage of innocent people, regardless of whether they are foreign or local,"Hishammuddin said.

Also present at the event were ministry secretary-general Tan Sri Mahmood Adam and Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Ismail Omar.

The biometric fingerprint scanning system, which was implemented on June 1, requires foreigners entering and leaving the country to have both index fingers scanned at entry and exit points, instead of just having their passports stamped. It is now implemented at 96 entry points in the country.

Yesterday, the Home Ministry's immigration affairs department issued a statement on a "total solution programme for illegal immigrants", where companies, associations and bodies were invited to become agents in facilitating the registration process of illegal immigrants.

The programme which include registering and providing amnesty, is aimed collecting statistics on the illegal immigrant population in the country and to allow them to go home without being penalised.

US Senator John McCain warns Myanmar it risks Arab-style uprising

2011-06-04T12:34:00.000+07:00

(CNN) -- U.S. Sen. John McCain warned Myanmar's new military-backed government to make democratic reforms or possibly face the type of revolution that has swept through Arab nations.

"The winds of change are now blowing, and they will not be confined to the Arab world," McCain told reporters in the former capital, Rangoon.

"Governments that shun evolutionary reforms now will eventually face revolutionary change later. This choice may be deferred. It may be delayed. But it cannot be denied."

McCain said in a telephone interview on CNN International that he was not predicting such an uprising in the country, but rather making clear that political change is sweeping the globe.

McCain wrapped up a two day "assessment" trip in Myanmar in which he met with senior leaders in the new government.

He said it was clear "the new government wants a better relationship with the United States" but called for "concrete actions" before the U.S. could consider lifting sanctions.

Such actions would include access to the country's prisons by the Red Cross, the unconditional release of more than 2,000 political prisoners, and guarantees of safety for pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi as she travels around the country for an upcoming political tour, McCain said during the telephone interview.

"U.S. policy should be that we're glad to have a dialogue, but we need an agenda for reform," he said.

McCain, who described Nobel Prize-winner Suu Kyi as "a personal hero of mine for decades," met with her Thursday and promised U.S. support for her efforts to bring democracy.

Suu Kyi spent most of the past 20 years under house arrest.

McCain said he had a long discussion with the activist during their visit, including the question of whether the United States should ease sanctions against Myanmar.

"I think that her position was very clear ... that progress could be made but only in return for further reforms that need to be made by the government," McCain told CNN.

During his visit, the senator also met with opposition and ethnic minority leaders.

McCain, who had spent six years as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, also met with recently-released political prisoners, some held for 20 years.

The longtime critic of Myanmar's military regime had been denied visas for the past 15 years and termed the granting of his recent visa "one illustration of change."

McCain arrived in Singapore on Friday for an annual intergovernmental conference on Asian security after his visit.

UNHCR raps Australia over child refugees

2011-06-04T12:21:00.000+07:00

Herald Sun

THE UN refugees agency today criticised Australia's plans to include children among 800 asylum seekers to be sent to Malaysia to have their refugee claims assessed.

"We are not able to lend our support to the text as it currently stands because of the absence of the operating protection safeguards we have been calling for," said Adrian Edwards, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, referring to a draft memorandum of understanding between Australia and Malaysia.

"UNHCR has always stipulated that one of our specific requirements with regard to the transfers is that protection safeguards are in place to protect vulnerable groups, especially unaccompanied children," he added.

In a deal between Malaysia and Australia, unaccompanied minors will be included in a plan to send 800 asylum seekers to Malaysia for processing.

In exchange, Australia will accept about 4000 registered refugees from the Southeast Asian nation.
The plan has been severely criticised by rights groups because Malaysia is not a signatory to the UN refugee convention, and over concerns that asylum seekers sent to Malaysia could be mistreated.

UN Commissioner condemns Australia's refugee swap

2011-05-26T11:21:00.000+07:00

thescotsman

AUSTRALIA and Malaysia's agreement to swap asylum seekers for refugees jeopardised asylum seekers' rights and was part of a racist and inhumane Australian policy, a United Nations human rights official has said.

Under the arrangement, Malaysia would accept 800 asylum seekers who entered Australia illegally by sea and in return Australia would settle 4,000 registered refugees living in Malaysia.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, discussed the agreement yesterday with Australian prime minister Julia Gillard at the end of a six-day visit to the country to examine major human rights issues.

Ms Pillay criticised Australia's treatment of asylum seekers, including the policy of holding them in immigration detention centres for months while their applications for refugee visas are assessed.

This arbitrary policy was partially explained by the backgrounds of asylum seekers who invariably are not white, western or European, said Ms Pillay, a South African lawyer.

She called on Australian lawmakers to "break this ingrained political habit of demonising asylum seekers".

She said: "There is a racial discriminatory element here which I see as rather inhumane treatment of people judged by their differences in colour, religion and so on."

Australian immigration minister Chris Bowen said later that he had "a very productive discussion" with Ms Pillay and remained committed to finalising details of the pact with Malaysia.

Ms Pillay said Australia should process refugee applications rather than transporting asylum seekers to Malaysia, which has not ratified the UN Refugee Convention or Convention Against Torture. She said she was not satisfied by Ms Gillard saying that Malaysia would provide written assurances that asylum seekers' rights would be protected.

Ms Pillay said: "In my view and as international jurisprudence has shown, assurances are not sufficient protection."

Richard Towle, regional representative of the UN High Commission for Refugees, which would judge the applications of asylum seekers sent to Malaysia, said that the deal had the potential to improve protections for refugees in the Asia-Pacific region.

Australia plans to pay Malaysia to agree to the deal in an effort to deter asylum seekers from using people smugglers to bring them to Australia by boat.

Australia has long attracted people from poor, often war-ravaged countries hoping to start a new life, with more than 6,200 asylum seekers arriving by boat last year.

Most are currently coming from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iran and Iraq, and use Malaysia or Indonesia as a starting point for the often dangerous sea journey to Australia.

Last month, detainees at an Australian immigration centre set fire to several buildings, climbed on to roof tops and hurled tiles at officials.

Up to 100 people at Sydney's Villawood Detention Centre were involved in the riot, which began when two detainees climbed on to a roof.

Around 400 people are held at the Villawood facility. Many of them are asylum seekers, but the facility also houses people who have overstayed their visas.

Some of the people involved in the protest were asylum seekers who had their visa applications rejected, Mr Bowen said. Officials last night refused to release any details of the protesters' nationalities.

Australia has seen a surge of asylum seekers fleeing Sri Lanka, Iraq and Afghanistan, and protests at detention centres have become relatively common.

The influx has led to a heated political debate as opposition politicians blame the flow on a relaxation of immigration policies by the ruling Labour Party.

Press Statement By Tenaganita - ASYLUM SWAP CANNOT BE THE FRAMEWORK FOR ADDRESSING HUMAN TRAFFICKING

2011-05-20T11:21:00.000+07:00

TENAGANITA

Press Statement.

May 18, 2011

ASYLUM SWAP CANNOT BE THE FRAMEWORK FOR ADDRESSING HUMAN TRAFFICKING

The Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishamuddin Hussein, in his statement on the asylum swap, reported today (Start N10 Nation 18 May 2011) between Malaysia and Australia is a pioneering and cutting edge solution to tackle people smuggling. He further added that this new approach would confidently combat human trafficking.

Tenaganita, an organization that has worked for the last 15 years on human trafficking and on refugees cannot understand nor recognize how an asylum swap framework of agreement will combat human trafficking. The Home Minister seems to put all issues into one basket. Asylum seekers and refugees are different. Refugees are people fleeing for safety to protect their lives resulting from persecution.

While it is true that they can be vulnerable to being “smuggled” or be trafficked at some stage but we cannot deny them their right to land and be protected. However, the asylum swap talks is about refugees who are already in Australia and who will be deported to Malaysia which is seen as a country that is hostile to refugees and treats them as illegal immigrants with no right to work, education and open to arrest and detention.

This deportation of 800 refugees is a gross violation of their rights and the principle of non refoulemont guaranteed under the UN Convention on Refugees to which Australia is a signatory. Central to the issue is protection of rights of refugees that cannot be compromised. It is the rights approach that the Home Minister does not address nor recognize at all in the deal. And Australia must hold to its state obligations and ensure the protection of rights of refugees and their integration into Australian society.

The Minister’s position can be further argued as we look into Malaysia’s human rights record. Malaysia holds a very weak record of its commitment to protection of rights is clear. It has not ratified basic Conventions like against Torture and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. ( ICCPR and ECOSOC). It is not a signatory to the UN Convention on Refugees and many more international instruments. Thus the Malaysian government is not obligated to protect rights nor can be it be made accountable by the international community nor by Australia. Diplomatic assurances do not provide any confidence especially when legal measures for rights protection are not in place in Malaysia while its environment being a dangerous condition to life even life threatening situation for refugees.

The agreement seems to turn Malaysia into a processing centre and an interceptor for boats thus barring refugees from landing in Australian territory. Australia on the other hand is passing its internal problems of refugee protection and growing xenophobic reactions to Malaysia. If this is what the deal will be, how can the Home Minister argue it will address human trafficking?

The incidence of human trafficking in the country is extremely high with investigations being weak. The rights of the victims or survivors of human trafficking are still unrecognized and civil society does not have access to victims after they are rescued. The legal framework and policies for migrant workers continue to place them in highly exploitative conditions that result in human trafficking. We would like to remind the Home Minister to begin the change in our backyard and ensure the root cause of human trafficking in the country is addressed before becoming an interceptor for another country.

We call on the Home Minister to stop pulling wool over our eyes and demand transparency into the agreement and the implications for Malaysia. Even if it addresses the issue of human trafficking, central to it, is the protection of rights of refugees and asylum seekers. The rights framework is absent and thus it is totally rejected as a “good” initiative.

Before any such initiative or agreements are made, Malaysia must change the legal framework, ratify the Convention on Refugees and show its commitment to rights protection with humanitarian support for asylum seekers and refugees.

END.

Signed:

Dr. Irene Fernandez

Executive Director

TENAGANITA (Women’s Force )

NO 38, Jalan Gasing, 46000, Petaling Jaya, Selangor Darul Ehsan

Tel: (603) 7770 3691 / 7770 3671 Fax: (603) 7770 3681

Email: http://ca.mc657.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=general@tenaganita.net

Malaysian refugee deal condemned from all sides

2011-05-12T23:35:00.000+07:00

theaustralian.com.au

THE Gillard government's controversial refugee swap with Malaysia has been slammed by all sides of politics, with Tony Abbott labelling it a "tragedy" and the Greens calling it an "appalling deal".

As the Greens tabled a motion in the Senate condemning the plan to trade 800 asylum-seekers for 4000 humanitarian refugees, the opposition hurled a bevy of questions at the government.

The Opposition Leader questioned why Julia Gillard would not pick up the phone to the President of Nauru, with his deputy, Julie Bishop, asking if children would be sent back as part of the deal.

"East Timor is clearly dead and PNG won't happen," Mr Abbott said.

The Prime Minister refused to buy into Ms Bishop's question on children, saying she would "not take lessons" from the opposition on compassion.

"I'm not going to take lessons on compassion from people who soiled themselves, soiled themselves in government with a track record," Ms Gillard said.

"The fact is this is all a political game for them."

Mr Abbott moved to suspend standing orders in the House of Representatives to "hold the Prime Minister to account" for her failed border protection policies.

"This is a tragedy for our country and it is damaging the national interest," Mr Abbott said.

"This is a problem (boat arrivals) going from bad to worse and it's simply because of this government's incompetence . . . it is another example of a weak and indecisive Prime Minister."

Under the agreement with Malaysia, which is not a signatory to the UN refugee convention, Australia will take five refugees for every one it sends away.

Mr Abbott accused the government of "unravelling" - seizing on suggestions that Malaysia would vet which asylum-seekers it wished to take.

The Malaysian high commissioner, Salman Ahmad, has said the deal might not apply to all the asylum-seekers Canberra proposes to transfer, and that Malaysia wants a say in who is sent.

"What that means is that the government's claim that the next 800 boatpeople who arrive in Australia will end up in Malaysia is simply false," Mr Abbott told reporters in Canberra. Stopping boats was the only way to test the policy, he said.

Greens immigration spokesman Sarah Hanson-Young tabled a motion yesterday condemning the deal. ""If there'll be no legislation then how we can give the parliament the opportunity to have their voice heard," she said.

Malaysia now a better place for refugees

2011-04-21T22:24:00.001+07:00

Free Malaysia Today
__________________________________________________

Refugees International says there were no deportation attempts last year and there was more respect for UNHCR identity cards.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia has made some improvements in its treatment of refugees, according to a report by the Washington based Refugees International (RI).

The report, which has a specific focus on Burmese refugees, said Malaysian authorities in the past year made no attempt to deport refugees and showed that they had increased their respect for identity cards issued by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

It noted that since 2009, the number of registered refugees in Malaysia had increased from 45,000 to more than 80,000.

About 90% of them are from Burma, where ethnic minorities like the Chin, Rohingya and Karen are said to be subject to systematic human abuses.

“There have been no reported attempts to deport Burmese refugees to the border with Thailand and a decrease in immigration raids and arrests of registered refugees,” RI said.

However, it added that these improvement had yet to be codified into policies and called on the government to “build on the progress” by setting up a system of residence and work permits, a suggestion which has been frequently repeated by local refugee advocacy groups.

The four-page report, released early this week, is entitled “Malaysia: Invest in Solutions for Refugees”. It said the refugees, as a ready work force, could replace some of the two million migrant workers in the country.
At present, refugees who hold the UNHCR card are permitted to reside temporarily in Malaysia but are not allowed to work.

The report also urged the government to allow refugees access to public schools and health facitilies and support projects that address the needs of women refugees.

Malaysia has been notorious for its treatment of refugees. It has been reported, for example, that the Rela volunteer corps have mistaken refugees as illegal immigrants and imprisoned them even though they held UNHCR cards. Some reports have spoken of Rela officials tearing up the cards.

Malaysia has not signed the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which sets out a framework for the protection of refugees.

Thailand to Myanmar Refugees: Drop Dead

2011-04-14T09:35:00.000+07:00

Council on Foreign Relations

According to reports by AFP and other news agencies, Thailand’s National Security Council head, Tawin Pleansri, told reporters after a meeting of the council that Thailand wants to close the refugee camps for over 100,000 Burmese refugees, who have fled the country over the past twenty years. Most of the Burmese refugees live in camps on the western Thailand-Burma border; their housing is basic, but it is better than living in eastern and northeastern Burma, where they are prey to regular campaigns of attacks and even mass rape by the Burmese military, and retribution attacks by armed ethnic militia groups. In one comprehensive report, a group focusing on Chin State in Burma documented the use of rape as a weapon of war by the Burmese military.

Thailand has never really wanted to house the Burmese refugees, but over successive administrations Bangkok has tolerated the refugee presence. Undocumented Burmese also frequently enter Thailand itself, providing a source of cheap and easily exploitable labor for many Thai companies. Now, however, Bangkok appears willing to use the fiction that Burma had a real election last fall to repatriate these refugees, most of whom will return against their will. Though the election last year may improve the quality of governance in Burma marginally, it was hardly a free or fair poll, or suggestive of the kind of dramatic change on human rights that would make it safe to return refugees.

There are other reasons for Thailand’s suddenly harder line. Leading Thai company Ital-Thai is in the process of making the largest-ever Thai investment in Myanmar, at over $13 billion. And overall, the government of PM Abhisit has tried to foster rapprochment with its neighbor. Too bad that over 100,000 refugees are going to be treated as a pawn in this relationship.

Dozens of illegals escape Malaysian detention camp

2011-04-06T09:54:00.000+07:00

(AFP)

LENGGENG, Negeri Sembilan — Malaysian authorities launched a large scale manhunt on Tuesday for dozens of illegal immigrants who fled a detention camp after burning down an accommodation block.

District police chief Saiful Azly told AFP a group of 200 policemen, immigration officials and paramilitary volunteers were combing central Negeri Sembilan state following the breakout from the Lenggeng immigration depot.

"Most of the detainees who escaped are from Myanmar, others include Iranians and one detainee from Nigeria," he said.

"Twenty-five of them have been re-arrested and have been brought back to the detention camp with a large scale manhunt under way to recapture the rest," Saiful added.

Earlier, Rusli Mokhtar, deputy commandant of the Lenggeng immigration depot, just south of Kuala Lumpur, said the break-out happened late Monday with 109 illegal migrants fleeing the detention centre.

Police have set up road blocks and are checking vehicles following the incident while dozens of paramilitary volunteers armed with batons comb the nearby palmoil estates on motorcycles to flush out the remaining 84 escapees.

The home ministry's top official in charge of detention centres, Mohamed Asri Yusof, said the breakout took place at about 9:45pm (1345 GMT) "when there was rioting and the detainees burnt down Block A".

He said the government has set up a committee to look into the incident.

Located 40 minutes from the town of Seremban, the detention camp is the size of six football fields and consists of four accommodation blocks and a watchtower encircled by a 20-foot (six-metre) zinc fence topped with concertina wire.

Home ministry officials admitted last August to poor standards at detention centres for illegal immigrants and trafficking victims, after a report labelled the facilities "ticking time bombs".

Officials had said Malaysia's 13 centres were insecure and that the detainee population of 7,000 -- of which more than half were "hardcore criminals" -- found it easy to escape.

In March last year 16 illegal immigrants, including 12 Afghans, escaped after cutting their way out of a detention centre at Malaysia's main international airport.

The home ministry's top civil servant, Mahmood Adam, has said it is developing a plan to tackle the situation.

He said anti-climbing fences and CCTV cameras would be installed at detention centres, and that a report would be put to cabinet soon on further upgrading and security measures required.

With one of Asia's largest populations of foreign labourers, Malaysia relies on its 1.8 million immigrants to clean homes, care for children and work in plantations and factories.

Immigration activists say Malaysia is often used as a staging post for trafficking gangs moving people from Afghanistan and Myanmar to Indonesia and Australia.

Strong earthquake hits Myanmar

2011-03-25T00:42:00.000+07:00

REUTER

CHIANG MAI, Thailand — A large 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck Myanmar near the border with northern Thailand on Thursday, killing one woman, police and witnesses said.

Witnesses said the tremors were felt in Bangkok, central Myanmar and as far away as the Vietnam capital of Hanoi where people were evacuated from tall buildings.

Police said a 53-year-old woman in Mae Sai, Chiang Rai province, had been killed when one wall of her house collapsed. Hospital officials said there were no other deaths or injuries reported.

The quake was centered 111 km (69 miles) north of the town of Chiang Rai, Thailand's northernmost province.

"In my 40 years, I never felt an earthquake this strong. A glass broke and I had to hold on to a pillar," Thanawan Sisukniyom, a retired teacher in Mai Sai, told Reuters by telephone.

Witnesses in Chiang Mai, the country's second-largest city, reported no immediate damage, but said the earthquake was felt strongly.

A witness in the Myanmar town of Tachilek, which borders Chiang Rai, said parked motorcycles fell to the ground and cracks were seen in the road.

TPBS television said electricity was cut off in parts of Mae Sai. The earthquake was shallow at a depth of 6.2 miles.

Chiang Rai province is a sparsely populated, hilly area that forms part of the famous "Golden Triangle," known for growth of illicit opium and where Myanmar, Laos and Thailand meet.

Somchai Baimuang, deputy director of the Thai meteorological department, urged the public not to panic.

"It's too soon to tell if there is any damage," he told Reuters. "Aftershocks are possible in the next two days."

Residents left their homes in the Myanmar capital Naypyitaw and the biggest city, Yangon. No deaths or injuries were reported.

"Many people fled their homes and laid down on the ground outside away from the buildings. We are still sitting on the ground since there are several aftershocks," a resident in Kentung, 50 miles west of the epicenter, told Reuters by telephone.

"In some buildings, TV sets fell off the tables and shrine altars fell down. I don't know anything about the casualties but I think there will be a lot of damage to properties," he added.

Thumbprints for foreigners under new biometric system in Malaysia

2011-03-18T23:55:00.000+07:00

thestar online

KUALA LUMPUR: Foreigners entering the country from June 1 will have their thumbprints taken under a biometric system to enhance security at 96 entry points.

The National Foreigners Enforcement and Registration System (NERS) would register and monitor foreigners from their arrival until departure, said Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

“The system is capable of tackling various immigration issues, including falsification of documents, overstaying, and misuse of visas, passes and permits.

“Foreigners will have their thumbprints taken and processed within 20 seconds upon their arrival. The system will monitor them and a warning slip will be issued should they overstay, so necessary action can be taken,” he said in Parliament yesterday.

The NERS, he added, would not apply to refugees as they were under a different category.

Muhyiddin, who earlier chaired the Cabinet Committee meeting on foreign workers and illegal immigrants, said the management of foreigners needed to be done in a holistic manner given changes in the migration landscape and global mobility.

The Cabinet Committee also agreed in principle to implement a new levy mechanism where employers would be charged more if they employed more foreigners and for a longer duration.

The suggestion would be tabled in the Cabinet for approval before its proposed implementation in June, he added.

Separately, when launching the language culturalisation programme, Muhyiddin warned against mixing Bahasa Malaysia with other languages.

“We should not simply mix Bahasa Malaysia with other languages as it will deteriorate the uniqueness and identity of the national language,” he said at the function organised by the Information, Communication and Culture Ministry.

He added that although Bahasa Malaysia was the national language, the public should not sideline other languages, especially English.

Malaysia is under fire over caning of 30,000 foreigners

2011-03-14T22:14:00.002+07:00

channelnewsasia

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia has said it caned nearly 30,000 foreigners since 2005, a revelation that drew condemnation Monday from rights groups who demanded an end to the "barbaric" practice.

Amnesty International says that caning has hit epidemic proportions in Malaysia, where the beatings are administered with a long stick that leaves permanent physical and mental scars.

Rights groups were outraged after it emerged that the government said in a statement to parliament last week that a total of 29,759 foreign workers were caned between 2005 and 2010 for various immigration offences.

"Judicial caning is a form of torture and ill-treatment against human beings because it causes physical suffering, psychological problems and constant trauma," Andika Abdul Wahab from rights watchdog Suaram said in a statement.

"This form of barbaric solution is prohibited" by international law, he added.

Suaram said the foreign workers were usually picked up during large-scale crackdowns on illegal migrants.

Malaysia is one of Asia's biggest importer of labour, with workers mostly coming from neigbouring Indonesia.

London-based Amnesty also urged Malaysia to immediately halt judicial caning, which is meted out for serious crimes including murder and rape, as well as for immigration violations.

"The government's figures confirm that Malaysia is subjecting thousands of people to torture and other ill-treatment each year," said Sam Zarifi, Asia-Pacific director of Amnesty International.

"While most countries have abolished judicial caning, Malaysia has expanded the practice. Parliament has increased the number of offences subject to caning to more than 60," the group said.

Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein declined to comment on the issue Monday but an aide confirmed the minister's statement made to parliament.

Corporal punishment has become a hot topic in Malaysia, particularly after a Muslim mother of two was sentenced to six strokes of the cane and a fine for drinking alcohol in 2009.

However, caning for such religious offences - ordered by Islamic courts which run in parallel with civil courts in the Muslim-majority country - is much lighter than in the civil justice system.

Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno's sentence for drinking alcohol was eventually reduced to community service but three other women then received between four and six strokes of the cane after being convicted of sex outside marriage.

The penalties triggered uproar among women's activists and human rights advocates.

Of human rights and detention

2011-03-08T09:37:00.000+07:00

Thestar online

A United Nations group tabled its report on detainees in Malaysia after visiting detention centres and interviewing inmates. The Malaysian Government has two years to act on the report and its recommendations.

MALAYSIA will have two years to implement recommendations made by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention after its final report is accepted by the Human Rights Council (HRC).

The report of the fact-finding mission was presented to the HRC in Geneva yesterday.

The four-member delegation that had been here from June 7 to 18 at the Government’s invitation, had visited detention facilities and interviewed detainees in confidence.

Describing the process at the HRC, Bar Council’s Human Rights Committee chairman Andrew Khoo said its members could make comments and ask questions following the presentation of the report.

“Malaysia will then have the opportunity to respond,” said Khoo.

Asked whether Malaysia could challenge for errors, he said it would have had sight of a draft to check for inaccuracies.

“After the report is adopted by the HRC, Malaysia will be given two years to implement the recommendations,” he said, adding that Forum Asia, through its Malaysian member Suaram, would be making a statement during the discussions.

The Government’s response will be of great interest since DAP chairman Karpal Singh had said on Saturday that older prisons and lock-ups in Malaysia were so overcrowded that they were unfit for habitation and needed the attention of a Royal Commission of Inquiry.

Also, when they released the initial findings here last June, Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein had taken umbrage at certain groups for ignoring the positive findings and instead latching onto the revelation that almost all detainees under preventive laws interviewed had said they were tortured by police to obtain confessions or evidence.

The delegation to Malaysia comprised the Working Group’s Chair-Rapporteur El Hadji Malick Sow from Senegal, member Roberto Garreton (Chile) and two members of its Geneva secretariat.

A statement of their findings at the conclusion of their mission is on the website of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, http://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=10176&LangID=E.

While they were pleased to find a decrease in Internal Security Act (ISA) detainees, Malick said 1,535 had died in prisons, rehabilitation centres and immigration detention centres between 2003 and 2007.

“Eighty-five others died in police custody. Most occurred in hospitals and they include a high number affected by HIV/AIDS,” he said, adding that inquests must be held in every case of death as soon as is possible.

The group noted that there were no complaints about the treatment by prison and detention centre guards.

However, they found that the Lenggeng Detention Centre suffered from “overcrowding, poor sanitation and inadequate medical care”, which helped transmit communicable diseases, particularly skin diseases.

He reminded the Government of its obligation to guarantee the right to safety of all foreigners, particularly when deprived of their liberty.

Malick said the excessive powers given to police and Rela had facilitated the detention of many at immigration detention centres, including those with UN cards from the High Commissioner for Refugees.

They recommended that the ISA, Emergency (Public Order and Prevention of Crime) Ordin-ance, Dangerous Drugs (Special Preventive Measures) Act and the Restricted Residence Act be repealed or amended to conform with the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

Malick said that they had found – at centres reserved for detainees under these laws – even those charged with common offences when they should be dealt with under the regular penal procedure.

Among other concerns were:

-- The police could, in some cases, arrest without a warrant and that magistrates routinely extended the initial 24 hours detention; and

-- Detainees under the preventive laws were not told of their right to contact relatives or consult a lawyer but if they knew, some police officers would say that the latter would “make their situation more complicated.”

Malick said the detention situation would improve if the judiciary were fully independent, based on the principle of separation of powers and composed of independent and impartial judges and magistrates.

Malaysia urged to let refugees work

2011-03-08T09:26:00.000+07:00

CB Online

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - Malaysia's government has relaxed a freeze on the recruitment of foreign workers in the services sector, with plans to bring in 45,000 Indians to meet a labor shortage that is undermining businesses, a Cabinet minister said Tuesday.

However, rights activists urged the government to allow more than 90,000 refugees in the country to work instead of importing more foreign workers.

Malaysia relies heavily on foreigners mainly from other Asian nations such as Indonesia, India, Bangladesh and Myanmar for low-paying menial tasks shunned by locals. It is one of Southeast Asia's top labor markets, with foreigners making up some 2 million of its work force of 12 million. Hundreds of thousands more work illegally in the country.

Human Resources Minister S. Subramaniam said the government banned the intake of foreign workers in the services sector last year mainly to weed out illegal foreigners in the country. But the process is taking too long and the freeze is hurting businesses, especially restaurants that rely heavily on foreign workers, he said.

"We don't want newcomers to come until the problem of illegals is sorted out, but that sorting out process is taking too long. Industries are having a lot of issues on the ground, some are on the verge of closing," he said.

"There must be some relaxation of rules ... so now for industries that are critically affected, the government is giving approval on individual merits. Last month, the Cabinet approved the recruitment of 45,000 foreign workers" to meet demand in 13 business sectors in the service industry, he said.

The 45,000 laborers will come mainly from India following a request from ethnic Indian businessmen who initially asked for 90,000 foreign workers to fill up vacancies for restaurant workers, barbers and newspaper vendors, he added.

Local rights groups Suaram, however, said the government was not wisely utilizing existing human resources, particularly 92,900 refugees registered with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.

"Most of the said 13 business sectors facing manpower shortage are in the small-scale business and can be filled by refugees," it said. "The ministry should give them opportunity and allow them to work instead of bringing in more foreign workers."

Subramaniam said a Cabinet committee will meet mid-March to discuss how best to tackle the country's reliance on foreign workers.

"We have told industries to make it more lucrative to attract more locals to work and at the same time, redesign their businesses so that they are less dependent on foreign workers," he said.

Maldivian autocrat’s family’s illegal ‘oil trade’ allegedly worth $800 million

2011-02-28T05:47:00.001+07:00

Manorama Online

By Sumon K. Chakrabarti

2011 does not bode well for autocrats, past and present. In January, the Jasmine Revolution swept away Tunisian autocrat Zine el Abidine Ben Ali; Egypt’s Mohamed Hosni Mubarak has promised to leave. Protests are growing louder in Algeria, Yemen, Jordan and Syria. But one former autocrat is quietly trying to make a comeback, just two and a half years after being unseated.

Asia’s longest ruling head of state, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, wants to be back. A self-confessed Mubarak fan, the Cairo-educated Gayoom ruled the Maldives for 30 years. Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed’s response to Gayoom bid was an ominous one-liner: “It will not be wise.” Nasheed had defeated Gayoom in the country’s first ever democratic elections in 2008. Why does Gayoom want to come back and what was Nasheed hinting at?

The answer, apparently, lies in Singapore. In March 2010, the Maldives commissioned Grant Thornton to investigate the hidden assets of Gayoom, his family and associates. Grant Thornton is a global network of 2,600 independent financial consultancy firms. In 2008, the Maldives auditor general had blamed Gayoom for using government funds and national institutions for personal benefit. In mid-2010, the Singapore Police began an official criminal investigation into the Gayoom family’s money laundering operations, now estimated to be somewhere in the region of $800 million.

THE WEEK accessed a copy of the Grant Thornton investigation report submitted to Nasheed’s office. The report names Abdullah Yameen Abdul Gayoom, the former president’s half-brother, as the kingpin of the money laundering operation. It also names a key player in the operation—Myanmar’s military junta, the State Peace and Development Council.

The Gayooms links with Myanmar Generals

The Gayooms had links with Brigadier-General Lun Thi, the Myanmar minister of energy, and with Vice-Senior General Maung Aye, the second highest-ranking member of the junta. The bridge between the Gayooms and Aye was Aung Ko Win, a Myanmar businessman who heads the Kanbawza Bank and Kanbawza Football Club.

The Gayooms received additional help from Aung Thaung, the Burmese minister of industry-1. Thaung’s son Major Pye Aung is married to Aye’s daughter, Nandar Aye. Another Burmese business couple, Tun Myint Naing aka Steven Law and wife Cecilia Ng, were also linked to the Gayooms. Law is the son of Lo Hsing Han, the heroin baron. The Han family runs Asia World Co. Ltd, which, among many other ventures, runs the Rangoon port.

The US treasury department’s office of foreign assets control had accused Law of being part of his father’s drug empire and had blacklisted his companies. Cecilia has been under the scanner for allegedly laundering the Burmese junta’s money through shadow ventures in Singapore.

So what did the Gayooms, the junta and the shadowy businessmen together do? The Maldives receives subsidised oil from OPEC nations, thanks to its 100 per cent Sunni Muslim population. The Gayooms bought oil, saying it was for the Maldives, and sold it to Myanmar and on the international black market. As Myanmar is facing international sanctions, the junta secretly sold the Burmese and ‘Maldivian’ oil to certain Asian countries, including a wannabe superpower.

One of the four cabinet ministers with whom the Grant Thornton report was shared told THE WEEK. “What is now becoming clear is that oil tankers regularly left Singapore for the Maldives, but never arrived here,” he said. “We are a tiny nation, our oil consumption is very less. The State Trading Organisation Plc [STO] of the Maldives used to buy oil, mostly from OPEC nations, and sell it in the black market or to Myanmar.”

The STO was established in 1964 to stabilise prices of essential commodities. The Maldivian government holds 92.29 per cent stake in the STO and the rest is held by the public. For smoother trading, a subsidiary company, STO Maldives (Singapore) Pvt Ltd, was set up in 1997.

STO Singapore’s mandate was initially limited to purchasing petroleum products for the Maldives. Later, the company was authorised to trade in petroleum. Majority of its sales were to the STO and to Myanmar, except in 2002, when bulk of the revenue came from Malaysia.

STO Singapore bought fuel from Shell Eastern Petroleum Pvt Ltd, the Singapore Petroleum Company Ltd and Petronas, and then sold it to STO or to third parties. The allegation is that the Gayooms used STO Singapore for their oil diversion and money laundering racket.

Sources in the Singapore Police said their investigation has confirmed “shipping fraud through the diversion of chartered vessels where the oil cargo intended for the Maldives was sold on the black market creating a super-profit for many years.”

In the report to Nasheed, Grant Thornton said it could only access financial information from 2002 to 2008 from the three hard-drives given to it by the President’s Commission, which probes the allegations of corruption and misappropriation of assets. No digital data before 2002 was available and the paper trail was hazy.

While Gayoom was president, his half-brother Yameen was minister for tourism and civil aviation, and, in 1990, he was made chairman of STO and minister for trade. He stepped down as STO chairman in 2005, but STO Singapore’s debit notes show payments made on account of Yameen in 2007 and 2008.

Yameen was allegedly aided by Ahmed Muneez, former MD, STO Singapore, and by Mohamed Hussain Maniku, former MD, STO. Maniku was MD from 1993 to 2008, and currently represents the Maldives in Washington, DC.

The Grant Thornton report said: “The debit notes were created as a result of receiving funds from Mr Yameen deposited at the STO head office, which were then transferred to STO Singapore’s bank accounts. This corresponded with a document received from STO head office confirming the payments were deposited by Yameen into STO’s bank accounts via cheque. In conversation with Mr Muneez, this was to provide monies for the living expenses of his [Yameen’s] son and daughter, both studying in Singapore. Their living expenses were distributed by Mr Muneez.” This arrangement ended just before Gayoom lost power.

A bureaucrat in the President’s Office in Male said that it was highly unusual for a former chairman to use a company’s bank accounts for personal money transfer. He said: “Yameen had previously requested Gayoom to send letters to foreign leaders and ministers with regard to oil production and sale.”

The first red flag regarding the Gayooms’ underhand deals was raised by KPMG Sri Lanka, which took over STO’s audits from PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2004. A KPMG note in 2004 said: “A company incorporated in Singapore by the name of Mocom Trading Pte Ltd in 2004 has not been disclosed under Note No. 30 to the Financial Statements. There was no evidence available with regard to approval of the incorporation. Further, we are unable to establish the volume and the nature of the company with the group.”

In 2005, KPMG raised the same objections and said: “The name of the company [Mocom Trading Pte Ltd] has been struck off on 20th April 2006.” Mocom Trading Pte Ltd led directly to the Burmese junta and businessmen mentioned earlier in this story.

Mocom Trading was set up in February 2004 as a joint venture between STO Singapore and Mocom Corporation Sdn Bhd, a Malaysian corporation. The JV was floated to sell oil to Myanmar. Authorised capital was $10,00,000. Number of shares? Four. Shareholders were Kamal Bin Rashid, a Burmese national; Raja Abdul Rashid Bin Raja Badiozaman, a Malaysian, and Fathimah Ashan and Sana Mansoor, both Maldivians. All four shareholders were directors, and there was a fifth director—Muneez.

Muneez told investigators that Mocom Corporation was one of the four companies which had the right to sell oil to Myanmar through a tender process. The other three were Daewoo, Petrocom Energy and Hyundai. Later, Mocom Corporation floated the joint venture with STO Singapore.

According to the contract, STO Singapore was to supply Mocom Trading with diesel. But since Mocom Corporation held the original contract, the company was entitled to a commission of nearly 40 per cent of the profits. The commission was to be deposited in a United Overseas Bank account in Singapore—a US dollar account held solely by Rashid. So, the books would show that the commission was being paid to Mocom, but Rashid would pocket it. This is just one of the many examples of the STO’s books being cooked.

In another example, STO Singapore and Mocom Trading duplicated sales invoices to Myanmar. The invoices showed the number of barrels delivered and the unit price. Both sets of invoices were identical, except for the price per barrel. The unit price on the STO Singapore invoices was around $5 more than the unit price on the Mocom Trading invoices. This was done to confuse auditors. The sum total of all Mocom Trading invoices to Myanmar Petrochemical Enterprises was $4,57,51,423, whereas the sum total of the invoices raised by STO Singapore was $5,14,23,523. The difference? $56,72,100.

Gayoom’s fall in 2008 had a direct link to the fortunes of STO Singapore. Its revenues had jumped dramatically in 2001-2002, after which annual sales hovered around 100 million Singapore dollars. From 2006 onwards sales started falling. In 2009, it dropped to 17 million Singapore dollars, its lowest returns to date.
Investigators have found instances where bills of lading were unsigned by the ship’s master. The bill of lading is a very crucial document as it is a detailed receipt given by the carrier to the person consigning the goods.

The Gayooms and Muneez had devised strategies to fool even the best of investigators. “They forgot that one small glitch can blow the lid off a perfect con job,” said Ibrahim Hussain Zaki, special envoy of the president of the Maldives.

Chakrabarti, CNN-IBN’s chief national correspondent, is writing a book on the Gayoom regime and its fall.

Rescuing democracy from malaise a challenge

2011-02-25T08:55:00.000+07:00

thestar online

Diplomatically Speaking
By Dennis Ignatius

The tumultuous events that shook Egypt are apparently causing jitters elsewhere. In Malaysia, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak surprisingly saw the need to warn against similar moves here.

Few believe that the conditions that prompted mass demonstrations in Egypt presently exist in Malaysia. For one thing, Malaysians are vastly better off economically than the Egyptians. For the most part, Malaysians enjoy a level of comfort and consumerism that is the envy of most of the developing world.

True, Malaysians have become decidedly unhappy with rising living costs, the concentration of wealth and opportunity in the hands of a few well-connected people, and widespread corruption. For now, however, these concerns are far from the point where they could conceivably find expression in a “day of rage”.

The most important difference, however, that mitigates against an Egyptian-style revolt here is that we already have in place a democratic system that gives the people the power to effect change through the ballot box.

The lessons we must learn from Egypt are of another kind: that democracy is a precious right that people in other nations have had to fight and die for. It must never be taken for granted or allowed to wither through neglect or indifference.

And therein lies the nub of our problem: our democracy, and the key institutions associated with it, has been in slow decline for some years now.

Malaysia is increasingly viewed as a “flawed” democracy. The recent Economist Democracy Index ranked Malaysia 71 out of 167 countries, behind even Indonesia, Namibia, Thailand and Papua New Guinea.

Rescuing our democracy from the malaise that has beset it is a key challenge, and arguably our most important task.

Democracy is more than simply casting a ballot once every few years; it is a way of life, a frame of mind, an attitude of heart, where citizens actively and tangibly participate in the political life of their nation through a myriad of different ways – turning out to vote, engaging political representatives and holding them accountable, participating in dialogue and debate, staying informed on issues and making informed decisions, standing up for fundamental rights, etc.

Passivity is the great enemy of democracy. The people themselves must be the guardians of their own freedom.

Fortunately, Malaysians appear to be increasingly vocal participants in the democratic process. They have not been afraid to take to the streets to peacefully express their displeasure or to support causes they believe in.

They are speaking out and challenging long established taboos. They have shown that they are ready to take a chance on the unknown and even elect political neophytes to office if it will help to improve the overall democratic climate in the country. Civil society groups are also more active, well organised and better supported.

All this augurs well for our democracy, though we still have some way to go. Democracy is, after all, always a work in progress. If our democracy is to prosper, democratic transformation and change must become a priority.

Intrinsic to this is an end to the culture of impunity. For too long, public officials who abuse their position have managed to evade justice. There is a sense that those with privilege and good connections are above the law. This is harmful to democracy.

Citizens of a democracy also need to be on guard against demagoguery and those who pander to narrow racial or religious sentiment. There is already too much of this in Malaysia and it is detrimental to our democracy. Character, principle and dedicated service should matter far more than racial or religious considerations.

As well, citizens of a free nation must be in the forefront of defending the democratic institutions, including a free press, an independent judiciary and a responsive parliament, that give substance to their democracy.

The curtailment of press freedom, for example, has weakened our democracy. Only a free and fearless press can keep governments accountable and citizens well informed. It is not a luxury we can do without; it is necessary for the survival of our democracy.

Our justice system also needs to be overhauled. The reputation of some of our judges has been tarnished and their impartiality questioned. Our police force is plagued by corruption and seen as abusive and disrespectful of the rights of citizens.

Last but not least, our Parliament must be transformed into the true heart of our democracy instead of being little more than a rubber stamp. Many of our elected representatives appear to owe little or no allegiance to the people who voted for them. If we are to give meaning to our democracy, we must demand more of those we elect to represent us.

George Bernard Shaw once quipped that democracy ensures that we shall be governed no better than we deserve. Malaysia deserves better and it is up to the people to ensure that we get it. That is what the people at Liberation Square are discovering.

> Datuk Dennis Ignatius is a 36-year veteran of the Malaysian foreign service. He has served in London, Beijing and Washington and was ambassador to Chile and Argentina. He was twice Undersecretary for American Affairs. He retired as High Commissioner to Canada in July 2008.

Local Burmese celebrate traditions now forbidden in Myanmar

2011-02-21T22:41:00.000+07:00

By Melissa Tait, Record staff

Feb 21, 2011

KITCHENER — Celebrating Chin National Day in Kitchener is bitter sweet for Victor Khambil.

In Burma — now called Myanmar — Chin traditions like the bamboo dance and harvest dance are forbidden, but at King Edward Public School on Saturday the Chin dances, costumes and song filled the gym.

Chin National Day commemorates the date of Burmese independence from Britain in 1948, but it has more meaning to Khambil and other Chin refugees.

“It’s our chance to show our children who are born here that we are a distinct people,” Khambil said.

Khambil, 37, fled Burma as a refugee, arriving in Kitchener in 2004.

Like many other ethnic Chins he still has family members in Myanmar, where he said the Chin people are persecuted for their nationality and Christian religion.

The Southeast Asian country is controlled by a military junta. The Chin — a minority nationality of 500,000 — are not allowed to observe their cultural traditions, learn their own language in school, or observe Christian faith, Khambil said.

In 1988, the junta killed 3,000 students during uprisings against the government, Khambil said. Today, he thinks there is a possibility the unrest seen in Middle East countries could spread to Myanmar to inspire their own uprising.

The country is heavily isolated from the outside world, but Khambil thinks rising frustration within the junta, and easier communication because of the internet can lead to change.

Internet use is heavily restricted, but “somehow (Burmese) get through it,” Khambil said.

Khambil said they celebrate their culture here, because at home in Myanmar, “with the military, there is nothing we can enjoy.”

Chin National Day 021.JPG Members of the Chin community, an ethnic group from Myanmar, perform a bamboo dance during the Chin National Day in Kitchener, Saturday. Mathew McCarthy/Record staff

mtait@therecord.com

Doctors call for UN inquiry into Chin State abuses in Burma

2011-02-14T02:50:00.000+07:00

A group of doctors working on human rights issues is lobbying the United Nations to conduct an official inquiry into crimes against humanity in the western Burma China State.

Physicians for Human Rights has just released what they say is the first survey of the scale of abuses against the ethnic Chin people finding widespread forced labour and cases of killings, torture and rape. The group trained volunteers from health and community organisations within Burma to survey hundreds of families in Chin State hoping to document anecdotal reports of human rights abuses.

Myanmar's military government is guilty of crimes against humanity in Chin State, targeting minority Christians, says the US-based NGO, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) in a new report.
"There is little humanitarian information on Chin State because it is remote with no infrastructure or easy access from neighbouring India. It is a neglected region," said Richard Sollom, a PHR deputy director and principal author of Life Under the Junta, released on 19 January.
PHR surveyors documented almost 3,000 separate incidents of abuse among 621 households (3,281 people) from 2009-2010, including forced labour, rape, torture, abduction, arbitrary execution, arrest, and forced conscription of children.

59 Human Rights Party members arrested

2011-02-13T22:12:00.000+07:00

thestar online

KUALA LUMPUR: Police arrested 59 members of the Human Rights Party in Perak, Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Negri Sembilan on Sunday ahead of an upcoming anti-racism rally.

They were nabbed at roadblocks as party members went on a roadshow to promote the rally.

Six were arrested in Perak, 27 in Negri Sembilan, five in Selangor and 21 in Kuala Lumpur, according to the Bukit Aman Media Centre.

However, the party claimed in its website that 75 members had been arrested.

The Human Rights Party had announced it would hold a massive rally to urge the government to ban the controversial Interlok novel from the literature reading list for secondary students.

According to the party’s website, the Feb 27 march from the Petronas Twin Towers to the Dang Wangi district police headquarters was themed “Solidarity against Umno’s racism.”

Following the march, they plan to lodge a police report to compel the government to withdraw the book from classrooms.

The Interlok novel, introduced as a component for the Malay literature subject for Form Five students, courted controversy when Indian groups claimed that it contained inaccurate and disparaging information about the community.

After a series of protests, including by MIC, the government agreed to amend the disputed portions of the book but insisted on using it in schools.

While MIC agreed with this decision, several other groups are demanding that the book be completely withdrawn.

Malaysia asylum crackdown violates rights, says Amnesty

2011-02-12T06:49:00.000+07:00

Radio Australia News
By Gavin Fang

Amnesty International has accused Malaysia of human rights violations against asylum seekers as it cracks down on people smuggling.

Refugees in Malaysia face detention and caning, and Amnesty says Australia which provides money and training to the country's maritime police is complicit in the ill-treatment.

Malaysia is a key transit country and asylum seekers are known to hide in the coastal villages before heading south by boat towards Indonesia and Australia.

Commander Khoo Teng Chuan of the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency says the Malacca Straits, off Port Klang, are a key location in people smuggling.

"This is one of the areas where they will bring the people out," he said.

"So basically what the boat will do, [it] will come here, embark the illegal migrants and then they will leave from here."

In October, Australia gave Malaysia's maritime enforcement agency, about a million dollars of hardware including patrol boats and hi-tech search equipment to catch people smugglers.

But it's not just the organisers who can be arrested - asylum seekers are also detained and face up to six strokes of the cane.

Burmese refugee Mawia spent several months in a detention camp in conditions he describes as inhumane.

"I was sentenced to three months in prison and two strokes of the cane," he said.

"It was the most terrifying and difficult period in my entire life."

Amnesty International and Malaysian human rights groups say thousands of asylum seekers have been caned - a punishment they describe as torture.

Amnesty International's Graham Thom says Australia is complicit in the ill-treatment.

"Australia certainly has a responsibility to make sure that is training and the way that it is facilitating people being detained are not going to then face human rights violations in Malaysia," he said.

But Malaysian authorities are unswayed.

Dato Che Hassan Bin Jusoh, Director of Enforcement with the MMEA, says heavy penalties are needed to act as a deterrent.

"It's harsh, but you see people when they are in the survival situation, they don't care whether you are being punished, whether they are being killed," he said.

"You see when they come here they are taking the risk."

Window dressing in Myanmar?

2011-02-07T07:16:00.000+07:00

The Daily Star

Many in Bangladesh would be surprised to know that Myanmar had an election last November and its first Parliament in twenty years was opened last Monday in the new capital, Naypyidaw.

Is this because we are reluctant to know about Myanmar or there is something more than meets the eye?

Forty-five years ago, the military had seized power in a coup there. Ever since, the regime has suffered from the fear that the world is conspiring to depose the junta by force. The USA, by imposing sanctions on Myanmar, also added to this fear of possible interference by unfriendly foreign forces in their internal affairs. The regime, therefore, made the people look inward.

The military regimes during this time also had to deal with a number of armed insurgencies by ethnic minorities within the country. Successive juntas, therefore, found it convenient to indulge in their pathological obsession with secrecy. They shut out their people from the world, and the world was also kept dark about their land and the people.

Other than slight opening to Thailand and China, all neighbours including Bangladesh were kept ignorant of what was happening inside Myanmar. Hence, there has been scant interest on our part about that country.

Take the case of shifting their capital from Yangon to Naypyidaw. The authorities quietly took this important decision and selected a site near the main road and rail line that links Yangon and Mandalay, deep in the jungles. They built a city there from scratch and let the people know about it in 2005 when, at the cost of $5 billion, the construction was complete. The cash starved country got the money from selling its timber, gems and natural gas.

Many do not know that the bright lights we see in Bangkok city is powered by this gas, which had been extracted from the Andaman Sea in Myanmar and piped and sold to Thailand. The cities in Myanmar however remain dark and desolate for want of electricity.

Like in many nations in the Arab world, the people of Myanmar have also not tasted democracy for decades. Twenty years back, however, the people were allowed to vote in an election. They voted overwhelmingly for Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of the founder of modern Myanmar, Aung Sung. But the army prevented her from taking power. Since that time she has been intermittently kept in jail or under house arrest.

It is only recently that the military government framed a new constitution with the purpose of introducing a political system that could perpetuate their grip on power. The constitution reserves 25% of all the seats in a bicameral legislature for the armed forces. It also stipulates that any future change in the constitution would require the votes of 75% of all the members from the two chambers.

The army retains the power to amend the constitution by using its casting vote. The constitution also lays down that three of the key cabinet posts -- interior, defense and border affairs -- will have to be held by serving generals.

It is in this backdrop that the military government finally allowed elections to be held last November. About 29 million people who were eligible to vote were then asked to choose representatives to sit in the two houses of parliament and to 14 regional assemblies.

More than 3,000 candidates contested for 1,160 seats in all these assemblies. The post of president of the country and those of two vice presidents were left to these representatives to choose from among themselves.

The elections were participated by 37 political parties, except the party headed by Ms. Aung Sung Suu Kyi. She was barred from contesting as she was convicted under the regime's law, for her past activism. Ms. Suu Kyi and her party the National League for Democracy (NLD), therefore, boycotted the polls. A splinter group from that party however joined the polls. The results of the elections showed that the pro junta political party called the NUP secured 80% of the seats in all the bodies.

Questions have been raised whether the elections were free and fair. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon commented that the polls were insufficiently inclusive and transparent. Since foreign observers were not allowed into the country, an independent assessment of the election was also not available.

The playing field was, however, tilted in favour of the pro-junta party much ahead of the elections. It knew about the schedule of the elections and could field candidates in all the constituencies. The other parties were notified much later and they had too little time in their hand before the elections to nominate candidates. Also they could not raise funds in the short time in hand for their election expenses.

Because of the provision of advance voting for government officials and members of the armed forces, candidates from other parties who had received the largest number of votes in a constituency subsequently found themselves defeated as officials and armed forces personnel had voted in advance for the pro-junta candidates.

Three things have however happened due to the elections in Myanmar. The junta had:

* Made the people turn out in large numbers to cast their votes. For the first time in many years the people were given a whiff of democracy;

* Made these elections the start of a process of moving towards a future democratic order;

* By barring Ms. Suu Kyi from participating in the elections, they failed to get international legitimacy for the political process initiated by them.

The election has, however, sprouted new opposition parties working within the political framework allowed by the junta, and are reportedly keen to bring some changes in the existing political system. These leaders are likely to stay in the political space so created and use it for the next elections in five years time.

So what about Ms. Suu Kyi? Now that she has been sidelined by the junta will she just fade away into obscurity?

When she was under house arrest she was the world's most famous political detainee. Now that she has been released, the world is eagerly waiting to see what she is likely to do.

There is no doubt that this 64 year old lady with impeccable English and a fresh flower in her hair, remains the most feared by the generals. She is the only one who can bestow any degree of international legitimacy to any political process in Myanmar. She is also the only one till today who can galvanise a new generation of youth in that country. These are two assets which she still commands and the junta remains cagey because of them.

So, as the generals dress their windows and spruce up their political act, Ms. Suu Kyi with her simplicity and charm continues to mesmerise her people and the people of the world. She is, therefore, likely to yet write the final chapter of the story of Myanmar's political emancipation.

Ashfaqur Rahman is a former Ambassador and Chairman of the Centre for Foreign Affairs Studies. E-mail: ashfaq303@hotmail.com

Myanmar parliament convenes for 1st time in 22 years

2011-02-01T06:59:00.000+07:00

JAPANTODAY

NAYPYITAW — Military-ruled Myanmar convened its first sessions of parliament in 22 years on Monday. Hundreds of parliamentarians elected Nov 7 gathered in the administrative capital Naypyitaw for simultaneous, closed-door sessions of the House of Representatives, the lower house, and the House of Nationalities, the upper house, under tight security.

The Union Parliament is dominated by the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, which won 79% of the seats in the two houses.

Of the total of 659 parliamentarians, 493 of them are elected civilians and the other 166 are military officers chosen by junta leader Senior Gen Than Shwe.

The country’s junta-sponsored Constitution, adopted in 2008, requires that 25% of parliamentary seats be filled with military representatives selected by the commander-in-chief.

The parliament’s first tasks are to elect the speakers and deputy speakers of the 440-member lower house and the 224-member upper house.

Khin Shwe, a wealthy business tycoon who became an upper house lawmaker from a Yangon constituency, said the top positions in parliament will likely go to members of the USDP as it is the majority party.

The two houses will then convene a joint session within 15 days to elect the nation’s president and vice presidents, which may happen within this week, according to officials.

‘‘I think the process for presidential election will be quick,’’ Khin Shwe said.

But it will likely be late February or early March when the cabinet is formed and the government is running.

Khin Shwe said the new government will likely include some non-USDP members, though USDP members will certainly hold the key positions.

Access to the parliamentary proceedings by journalists has been highly restricted and the junta has banned lawmakers from carrying devices such as mobile phones, cameras, voice recorders and computers.

Leaking pictures or documents from parliament is punishable by up to two years in jail, while anyone entering the parliament premises without permission could be slapped with a one-year jail term.

The military, which has ruled the country in various forms since 1962, has portrayed the holding of the parliamentary session as the sixth step in the seven-step ‘‘road map to democracy’’ which the country’s generals unveiled in 2003.

The country’s main opposition group, the National League for Democracy led by Aung San Suu Kyi, is not represented in parliament as it boycotted the November elections, the country’s first in over two decades, on the grounds that the military-drawn electoral laws were ‘‘unfair and unjust.’‘

The NLD won the 1990 election by a landslide but the junta refused to hand over power.

In Tokyo, Foreign Press Secretary Satoru Sato said in a statement the Japanese government will ‘‘closely observe the future direction of the National Assembly, including its administration, debates as well as the activities of the pro-democracy movement and ethnic minority parties.’‘

Japan also urges the new Myanmar government to ‘‘take positive measures to ensure a more inclusive phase by implementing measures such as the release of political prisoners, the advancement of substantive dialogue with relevant parties as well as the deepening of relations with the international community, including Japan,’’ Sato said.

Policy chaos over migrant workers in Malaysia

2011-01-26T05:42:00.000+07:00

THAILAND BUSINESS NEWS

Malaysia has a total of 1.9 million registered migrant workers, constituting approximately 21 per cent of the workforce, making Malaysia the largest importer of labour in Asia.

Despite the large presence of migrant workers in the economy, the policies and laws regulating in-migration are chaotic. Policies built on the concept of a short-term remedy for labour shortage problems have exposed the failure on the part of policymakers to recognise the critical contribution of migrant workers over the longer term. The problem is compounded by the absence of a comprehensive policy on in-migration as an integral part of national strategies for economic growth.

The inflows of migrants in the various economic sectors have generally been governed informally, although the government has signed Memorandums of Understanding with several designated countries, including Indonesia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, China, Vietnam, Pakistan and Thailand. Following this, the private sector was permitted to set up employment agencies to officially recruit migrant workers from these countries. However, after failing to combat the increasing inflows of illegal migrants, the government, in 1995, put a stop to private sector recruitment agencies and replaced them with a Task Force on Foreign Labour. The frequent pre-1995 sanctions on the importation of migrant workers persisted into the post-1995 period, suggesting that the special Task Force had also failed to stem the employment of illegal workers. The Task Force was then disbanded in 1997, and in 2002, recruitment procedures were subject through G to G agreements.

Apart from the changes in the recruitment process, frequent bans have been imposed to cut back the intake of migrants. These measures are generally short-lived, lasting not more than a year. Retrenchments and deportations of legal workers following any economic downturn have been reversed soon after employers’ problems with labour shortage.

In the course of regulating the use of migrant workers across the various economic sectors, the government has also sought efforts to deter the recruitment and retention of legal migrants by instituting market-based measures, such as the levy system in 1991 (with subsequent upwards revisions made in 1995, 1998 and 2005), the mandatory contributions to the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) in 1998 and the reduction in the maximum limit of the work permit in 2001. However, these policies backfired as employers switched to hiring illegals and under-reporting migrant wages to reduce their contributions to the EPF. As a result, the levies were lowered in 1999, the mandatory contribution to EPF was revoked in 2001 and the limit of the work permit was revised to five years from three years.

Though the laws of Malaysia do not discriminate against migrant workers, in practice, the rights of migrant workers are not protected: workers suffer from non-payment of wages, wrongful deduction of wages to cover work permits, long working hours, sub-standard living conditions, no insurance coverage, travel documents withheld by employers and unfair dismissal.

There are also provisions in existing labour laws with inherent biases against migrant workers. The Workmen’s Compensation Act (which covers migrant workers) provides benefits that are by far inferior to that as provided by the SOCSO (Social Security Organisation) scheme to local workers. Apart from observed differences in the compensation for migrant vis-à-vis local workers, there is no assurance that the injured migrant worker is compensated for under the Act, as this requires the worker to be adequately insured by the employer.

A recent announcement by the Malaysian government requiring employers to buy health insurance coverage for migrant workers effective this month is positive. Yet, this mandate, though it ostensibly benefits migrant workers, is being implemented mainly because of the high amount of unsettled public hospital bills by employers, totaling RM18 million (US$5.8 million) as at November 2010. To date, the details of the health insurance, apart from the annual premium of RM120, have not been made known to the public.

There are three main policy contexts in which migrant inflows are affected through the ‘price’ (labour cost encompassing wages, non-wages and other intangible benefits) effect.

The provisions outlined in the specified Acts that are applicable to migrants need to be reviewed to ensure equal protection for the former with that of their local counterparts. Of importance are the compensations meted out under the Workmen’s Compensation Act 1952. The compensation packages, offered to foreigners in the event of workplace injuries, need to be revised upwards as the payment is too low in comparison with the SOCSO plan for local workers. Equal treatment of migrants with that of local workers will tax away any undesirable cost saving gains borne by employers.

The government is also studying a proposal to increase the levy for migrant workers, with differing rates across skills and sectors. The current annual levy system suffers from several shortcomings. In the case of manufacturing, an annual levy of RM1200 and RM960 (based on the latest revision in August 2005) is imposed on migrant workers in Peninsular and East Malaysia respectively. A blanket levy for manufacturing is not feasible given that the dependence on migrant workers varies considerably across industries.

The final policy issue also under consideration is minimum wages. The Malaysian Trade Union Congress has been pressuring the government to introduce a minimum wage of RM900, plus cost of living allowance of RM300, to attract local workers and reduce the dependence on migrant workers. The key challenge is to identify the appropriate rate for minimum wages as the proposed rate matches up to a basic wage of a semi-skilled worker in Malaysia, lest displacement of jobs may post a greater problem as higher wages relative to neighbouring countries attract more migrant inflows. The argument that a minimum wage will reduce the dependency on migrant workers is debatable and can somewhat be counterproductive given that: first, migrant workers may increase instead of decrease unless transaction costs (such as work permits and levies) are increased sufficiently to render them unattractive; second, local workers may still not be willing to undertake 3-D (dirty, difficult and dangerous) jobs, and even if they do, workers’ productivity with minimum wages becomes another concern; third, the problem of non-compliance and abuse by the various stakeholders which has plagued in-migration in Malaysia to date may worsen as unscrupulous employers resort to illegal workers to undercut cost of competitors.

The core problem is a lack of a comprehensive migrant worker policy and weak governance structures. The Malaysian case is a classic case of the failure of decentralisation in the recruitment and placement of migrant workers, in addition to lack of enforcement of existing regulations by various stakeholders.

Evelyn Devadason is Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University and Associate Professor at the University of Malaya.

Cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment

2011-01-21T07:32:00.000+07:00

thestar online

DIPLOMATICALLY SPEAKING
By DENNIS IGNATIUS

Last month, Amnesty International published a report drawing attention to the fact that judicial caning in Malaysia has reached epidemic proportions. Since 2002, when the Immigration Act was amended to include corporal punishment, nearly 48,000 prisoners have been whipped in Malaysia.

It is a shocking reminder of the cruel, inhuman and degrading way we treat prisoners, particularly refugees and illegal migrants.

Caning or whipping is a horrendous form of punishment. Maximum force, with the cane travelling at speeds of up to 160kph, is applied. The whiplash of the cane (usually a piece of rattan about 1.09m long and 1.25cm thick that is soaked in water) literally takes the skin off the buttocks and then pounds the flesh into pulp. Skin disintegrates. Blood flows copiously.

The pain is so severe that victims often lose consciousness. And when they do, they are quickly revived by doctors so that punishment can continue.

How doctors can participate in this kind of abuse is beyond understanding.

Whipping leaves deep scars that take months to heal. It also leaves deep emotional and psychological wounds that mark the victims for the rest of their lives.

In 2007, a six-minute video of a drug trafficker being caned in Malaysia found its way onto the Internet. Those who think that caning is an acceptable form of punishment should take the trouble to view it.

I personally found it too disturbing to watch. It brought back memories of my late father’s treatment at the hands of the Kempeitai – the military police of the Imperial Japanese Army during the war years. My father was whipped so badly that he carried the scars on his back and buttocks to his grave some fifty years later.

That such horrific abuse is still being visited upon people today is mind-boggling.

And all this despite the fact that there is no evidence that caning is an effective deterrence. It simply panders to our baser instincts to inflict pain upon those who transgress.

Furthermore, such forms of corporal punishment are clearly against the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that, “No one shall be subject to torture or to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment”.

Malaysia has always been an ardent supporter of the UN and proudly sits on its Human Rights Council, yet we violate one of its most cherished principles. We lose the moral authority to speak on human rights issues when we ourselves don’t cherish and uphold them.

Some years ago, Malaysians joined the global outrage over the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. America was rightly condemned for behaving in such a cruel and callous manner. What does it now say of us when we are silent about something far worse that is taking place in our prisons on an almost daily basis?

What is even more egregious is that we visit such horrific punishment upon hapless refugees and illegal migrants as well.

Refugees from Myanmar, for example, flee in fear and desperation from well documented abuse, torture and death in their own land only to be further abused in Malaysia.

According to Amnesty International, more than 6,000 refugees are caned, up to 24 times each, every year!

This is morally reprehensible and a great blight upon our nation’s honour.

Of course, we are not the only ones to permit judicial caning. It is widely practised in Singapore and Brunei as well, courtesy of our common British colonial heritage. Caning is now increasingly considered a cheaper alternative to jailing offenders. Illegal migrants are whipped and then deported.

Not surprisingly, many countries seem to ignore this appalling abuse of their own citizens in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei. If Australian, British or American citizens were similarly treated, there would be an international uproar, which explains why such punishment is rarely inflicted on them.

Our poorer Asian neighbours, on the other hand, remain silent largely because they fear antagonising us and jeopardising an important source of foreign income in the remittances that these migrant workers send home each month. For countries like the Philippines, Bangladesh and Nepal, for example, such remittances make a significant contribution to their economy.

Perhaps it is also because Asian governments tend to place a lower premium on human dignity.

Whatever the reason, shame on them for staying silent while their citizens are so harshly treated abroad.

Of course, Myanmar’s military rulers are not going to lose any sleep over the treatment of Karen, Kachin or Rohingya people abroad, but surely we become complicit in the injustice wreaked upon these people if they end up being abused and punished in Malaysia as well.

When asked about the leaked caning video in 2007, the Deputy Home Minister at the time said it was “no big deal”.

But it is a big deal when our nation inflicts such horrendous suffering upon prisoners, upon migrant workers and upon refugees. It tarnishes our image and invites international scorn.

And it is a big deal because we are better than that.

It’s time we end this barbaric form of punishment. Certainly, we should immediately stop the caning of refugees and illegal migrants.

Datuk Dennis Ignatius is a 36-year veteran of the Malaysian foreign service. He served in London, Beijing and Washington and was ambassador to Chile and Argentina. He retired as High Commissioner to Canada in July 2008.

Police identified four crime areas in Kuala Lumpur

2011-01-16T09:08:00.002+07:00

Malay Mail

KUALA LUMPUR: City police have identified four areas within Kuala Lumpur as crime hot-spots, based on statistics and reports received from the public.

City police chief Datuk Zulkifli Abdullah said police have begun conducting special operations in Selayang in cooperation with several other enforcement agencies like the Immigration Department and anti-narcotics team to clean up these crime hotspots so residents would feel more secure about their environment.

Raids conducted from Jan 1 near the Selayang wholesale market have so far resulted in 402 detained for offences, such as drug possession and having invalid travel documents.

Zulkifli said similar operations have been planned for Wangsa Maju, Sentul and Cheras. He assured the raids would continue until the crime rate in target areas dropped.

In all, 402 people were detained in the special operations at the Selayang wet market.

They comprised 349 males and 53 women, the majority of them being Myanmar nationals.

They included 70 suspected drug pushers.

The others were held for failure to produce travel documents and possession of invalid travel documents.

Selayang drug mart

KUALA LUMPUR: Selayang's status as a crime hotspot had been exposed by The Malay Mail, following an incident where a Myanmar national drug pusher at the wet market was shot by police on Dec 6.

The Paper That Cares exposed the criminal activities at the wet market at Selayang where our probe revealed drug activities to be at "alarming levels".

Residents around the market area, and workers and customers we spoke to shared the same concern and agreed criminal activity in the area was serious.

In our Dec 7 frontpage report, Kuala Lumpur Narcotics Crime Investigation Department chief ACP Kang Chez Chiang had said immigrants used the market and empty shoplots there as a haunt for drug activities.

Kang had said the Selayang wet market had become a druginfested area with the growing population of immigrants from Myanmar, Bangladesh, Nepal and Indonesia, causing uneasiness among the residents.

From January to October last year, 926 people of various nationalities, including Malaysians, were found involved in drug activities there.

The majority of the suspects were drug addicts.

The foreign drug syndicates were usually small groups comprising their respective communities, mainly Myanmar and Achenese from Indonesia.

Each group was headed by a pusher who received his supply from a bigger player elsewhere, who could either be a local or the immigrant's fellow countryman.

The popular drugs at the wet market in Selayang were heroin and ganja, followed by ketamine.

They were sold between RM100 and RM350 for a small packet.

Kang had said police were keeping the Selayang wet market under constant watch with the help of the Immigration Department and the People's Volunteer Corps (Rela), and checks on illegal immigrants were being conducted from time to time.

Burmese prisoners forced to walk on minefields

2011-01-15T05:40:00.000+07:00

Vancouversun

Prison inmates sent to front-line fighting between the Burmese army and a rebel faction have been used by the regime's armed forces as human mine sweepers.

Some of the 600 prisoners sent to the border with Thailand suffered serious injuries after they were forced walk ahead of troops across minefields.

One rights group said it amounted to a "crime against humanity". The human mine sweepers had originally been forced into military service and used as porters carrying ammunition, according to three prisoners who escaped and made it to the Thai border town of Mae Sot.

The abuse of the prisoners led to outrage and shock even though Burma's armed forces regularly torture opponents, raze rebel villages and use rape as a weapon of war. "This shouldn't happen in any situation," Bo Kyi, of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners-Burma, told The Irrawaddy magazine.

"They are, in effect, executing prisoners by other means. It would definitely constitute a crime against humanity."

The three escapers were among 30 inmates from Pakokku Jail sent to a Burmese army camp in the province bordering Mae Sot in December.

Myanmar to introduce mandatory military service

2011-01-10T00:12:00.002+07:00

Shwedarling news

Myanmar's military government will introduce a draft for men and women aged 18 and older.

NHK has obtained official documents issued by Myanmar's military government. The documents show that legislation for mandatory military service was enacted on December 17th.

Men aged between 18 and 45, and women aged between 18 and 35 will be drafted into the army for two to three years.

The government requires all people of eligible age, except the physically challenged, to register with local authorities.

Those who fail to register or try to evade the draft face imprisonment of up to five years.

Following last November's general election, the country's first in 20 years, a new parliament is expected to convene as early as the end of January, and establish, in appearance, a civil government.

Analysts say the move indicates the military government's effort to maintain its influence by familiarizing people with the military.

The last-minute decision to introduce the draft system before the new government's inauguration is likely to stir protests from the public.

Fri, 07 Jan 2011 19:28:00 +0900(JST)
(JST: UTC+9hrs.)

Karenni man frees Thai hostage at UN Mae Sot refugee office

2011-01-04T17:00:00.000+07:00

mcot news

MAE SOT, Jan 4 - A Karenni man on Monday held a Thai man hostage outside the office of the United Nations' High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the Thai-Myanmar border town of Mae Sot. The hostage-taker demanded ‘real democracy’ in Myanmar, but later freed the hostage after hour-long negotiations.
The 36-year-old Karenni man, who said he was a soldier of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) carrying a hand grenade in each hand, held 53-year-old motorcycle taxi driver Roj Laowan as hostage Tuesday morning.
Mr Roj said that he was hired by the hostage taker to go to the UN office before his passenger used hand grenades to take him as hostage.
Mae Sot district chief Kittisak Tomornsak and police negotiated with the DKBA soldier, later identified as Saw Tami, for an hour until he agreed to free the Thai hostage and handed in the grenades to the Thai authorities.
The Thai hostage told police that he was hired by his Karenni client to drive him to the UNHCR office but later was held hostage.
Upon surrender, he submitted a complaint letter saying that the DKBA forces will not be submissive to the Myanmar troops and become Border Guard Force (BGF) for the Myanmar government.
He said that several ethnic groups did not accept the result of the general election held on Nov 7, 2010 as it was not fair and transparent.
The letter also stated that the Nov 7 election cannot solve the problems in the military-ruled country while urging the UN to help establish true democracy in Myanmar.
It was reported that Saw Tami was initially charged with illegal entry to the Thai kingdom and possession of military weaponry.
The Tuesday hostage incident occurred two months after clashes between the Myanmar armed forces and a splinter faction of the DKBA erupted at the Myanmar border town of Myawaddy just one day after its first election in 20 years, forcing a large number of Karen people fleeing the fighting to cross the border into Thailand. (MCOT online news)

Prostitution is forbidden in Malaysia...

2011-01-04T16:54:00.000+07:00

allvoices.com

Everyone maybe enjoy seeing women who demonstrate a sexy body. Without shame they act - just to get customers. To provide sexual services and get paid fairly.
Without the capital to trade. Assets only - look beautiful, young and able to give sexual satisfaction to the customer. Although Malaysia is well known as an Islamic country but still prostitution cases were reported.
Continued enforcement. Prostitutes were arrested for prosecution in court. Although the government has not issued licenses brothels, but this activity is growing like 'mushrooms after rain'. Persistently whether successful or otherwise detained by the authorities remain free to do everything. Only do business in order to provide sexual favors to those who are 'hungry' minx services.
Yesterday, the authorities successfully raided a brothel premises which puts young women in a big 'aquarium' for viewing customers. This tactic was first discovered in Seremban and it is commonly done in southern Thailand involving the prostitution industry that offered to the visitors.
In a raid on a shop in Park Avenue, Kuchai Lama here, a total of nine Chinese citizens arrested when they demonstrating themselves.
In addition to the high investment to modify the character of modern living and luxury, the owner of the premises also provide a business card that displays the sexy image to promote.
Police investigation found, the selection of a prostitute known as Grade A China Doll is neatly done by selecting only look beautiful and has a voluptuous body.
The new 10-day activity is believed to offer sexual services to operate the usual RM160 to RM180 per hour while a special package to the bathroom together.
According to the Division Operations Officer of Secret Societies, Gambling, and Disobedience (D7) Bukit Aman, Inspector Zurita Ahmad, activities successfully sniffed his premises before the raid at 4:30 this afternoon.
She said, the nine Chinese citizens women aged withthin 19 to 28 years and five men believed to be working at that premise was arrested.
"All those who are found abusing their social visit pass is believed to work as masseurs and prostitutes at the premises. Seven Chinese citizens have a social visit pass is valid while two more have expired," she said to reporters yesterday.
She said, initial inspections revealed that four of the men are locals and the other citizens of Bangladesh and they believed to have a fake identification card.
"Police found thousands of condoms are not used in that premise that do not have a business license. The premise was set up four common rooms and eight rooms are equipped with bathroom believed for sexual services to the special package,"she said.
Zurita said, prostitution is also promoted through the popular Internet social networking site to find clients.
In Malaysia, it is difficult to subscribe to a prostitute because it is an offense set forth in country law.

MAKE UNITY, TRUTH AND JUSTICE AS NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS FOR MALAYSIANS

2011-01-01T22:25:00.013+07:00

phangstraighttalk

Tan Sri Robert Phang Miow Sin
Chairman - Social Care Foundation
Panel Advisor Of Malaysia Anti - Corruption Commission (MACC)

On Friday Dec 31, 2010, we will say goodbye to 2010 and usher in 2011. Fortune tellers, astrologers and Feng Shui practitioners will review the events of past years in self glorification of the accuracy of their predictions. They will attempt to provide new prophecies and guidance to forecast events and good fortunes for the coming year. But, they do it for commercial gains.

As a social activist, I would like to address the fundamentals that are of importance to us as a progressive nation. Malaysia is a country of faiths. It is stated that Islam is the official Religion of the Federation but at the same time, freedom to practice other faiths and religions is guaranteed. How we prosper as a nation cannot be based on fortune telling and guessing games but on hard facts, sound policies and universal principles to be gathered from our faiths and religions.

Whether we are Muslims, Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists or of any other faiths, the plurality of faiths of this country must be preserved. I call on IKIM and Perkasa not to cause confusion by fanning the differences between us, but to build on the commonality that binds us. It’s a folly to claim whose religion or whose god is the right one. All religions teach good things and we all believe in ONE TRUE GOD.

Thus, all talk that cause differences, tensions and schisms must stop. If May 13, 1969, is to be remembered, it should be commemorated as a day of mourning when this multi-cultural and multi-religious beloved country of ours was almost ruined. Thus, it must be our national resolution that May 13^th must not recur or Malaysia will become a failed nation. It is our commonality that binds us as a nation since Independence and that will shape our future destiny as 1Malaysian!

With regard to the New Key Result Areas (NKRAs) for reduction of crimes, I congratulate Home Minister Dato’ Seri Hishamuddin Tun Hussein Onn, who has worked hard and developed innovative ways to assist the PDRM in the fight against crime. I also congratulate Dato’ Seri Hishammudin for understanding the importance of public perception and thus ended the former IGP’s tenure. Compared to his predecessor, Tan Sri Ismail Omar is a breath of fresh air. Like a clean white sheet, it is now in his hands to re-shape PDRM into the principal respected law enforcement agency that it once was. We, Malaysians, must support Tan Sri Ismail Omar, the current IGP, to aspire for a crime free society.

As a Panel Advisor of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), I applaud the achievements of the MACC’s Chief Commissioner, Dato‘ Seri Abu Kassim, in bringing to book some big names this year. In the PKFZ case, Tun Dr Ling Liong Sik has been charged. However, the report by the forensic auditors mentioned several other big names, including those still serving in government and are also big names in their political party. These big names have quickly used the MACC’s clearance as a political mileage. This has invited public skepticism, especially when it is perceived that a thorough investigation has not been conducted and the clearance was just a political whitewash. That was what the public perceived in the case of former Selangor MB Dato‘ Seri Dr Khir Toyo until he was charged recently. I remind these big names not to be so gleeful, bordering on arrogance.

The public also view with grave suspicion the allegations over the personal conduct of Attorney-General (A-G) Tan Sri Gani Patail who is seen as consorting with Tan Sri Tajudin Ramli’s proxy, Shahidan Shafiee. This is of great disservice to the government in the fight against corruption. I have raised this before and the A-G‘s continued silence is defeaning. PAS vice president Salahuddin Ayob has now raised the same issue. This is not just a political issue but it also concerns the integrity of the highest law officer of the country. His actions and conduct can erode the credibility of the government.

There is also public scepticism over the conduct of the A-G, in the exercise of his prosecutorial powers. His reluctance to act in certain cases, while very vociferous in others, have given rise to allegations of selective prosecution bordering on persecution. YB Salahudin Ayob also raised this seeming double standards involving the case of lawyer En Rosli Dahlan. En Rosli is widely known to be the lawyer handling the MAS case and has alleged that he had been victimised by rogue elements in the government. It is frightening to the citizens at large that the whole machinery of the A-G’s office and the MACC can be used against one man. The government must dispel this perception of persecution against an innocent citizen.

I have raised these matters without any personal or political agenda. I am not a politician. I speak for what I believe to be true and right. These are matters that have been in the public domain and it is incumbent on me to remind the powers that be of the public displeasure. Only in this way civil activists like me can be of service to the nation, the government and the public. This is consistent with the reminder by the Prime Minister Dato‘ Seri Najib Tun Razak that those in power must not suffer from the four diseases – Delusion, Amnesia, Inertia and Arrogance. I pray that all Civil Servants, Politicians more so the YBs and Ministers, will follow rigidly to our YB PM’s directive.

In closing 2010’s chapter and in welcoming 2011, I pray for God’s Blessings upon all of us and that we become a truly 1Malaysia nation in the pursuit for Unity, Truth and Justice.

I wish all Malaysians A Happy & Blessed New Year 2011 !!

“HUMBLENESS IS GOOD VIRTUE, ARROGANCE SHALL FALL, THE MEEK WILL RULE THE WORLD”.

End slavery, protect rights of migrant workers

2010-12-29T10:57:00.000+07:00

Malaysiakini News

Malaysia is the largest receiving country of migrants within Asean and one of the biggest for transborder recruitment of workers in Asia. Almost one out of every three workers in the country is a migrant worker. In spit of political leaders stating over and over that we will not continue to rely on migrant workers, the truth is the number of workers has increased and the demand for migrant workers is growing.

Last week, the deputy prime minister in his address to KIMMA, a political party assured them that the government will approve the recruitment of 45,000 workers from India for the Indian Muslim restaurants.
The service sector through the retailers association in Sabah has called for the government to stop deportation of workers from Sabah. Yes we will continue to rely more and more on migrant labour and it is a myth to believe it will be otherwise. In fact, it is migrants who provide us the economic security today.
December 18 is International Migrant's Day where the world and the United Nations recognise the contribution of migrants to a country's development. But where does Malaysia stand in this recognition?
Two Amnesty International reports released this year, 'Trapped' and 'Blow to Humanity' reveal the exploitative and violent nature in the treatment of migrant workers to the point of using whipping as a tool of torture for control of migrants.
Tenaganita's experience during the last three years reveals the treatment of migrants to be equivalent to a form of modern day slavery supported by an oppressive policy framework that denies access to justice and redress.
The organisation through its work in case management between the years 2008 - 2010 handled complaints from a total of 7,083 migrant workers. Out of these migrants, 6,001 workers were recruited and placed under outsourcing companies.
All of the migrant workers' passports were held by the employer or the outsourcing company, thereby controlling the movement of the migrant worker. Out of this total, 6,772 workers did not have any work to do and thus cheated by the agent and the outsourcing companies. This form of rights violation reveals over-recruitment of workers and approval of work permits without proper scrutiny and verification of work demand in the country.
It is equally alarming that the cases reveal that 5,260 workers had not received any wages for the work they had done and the work permits of 1,028 workers were not renewed. This non-renewal of work permit makes the migrant worker undocumented and thus open to arrest, detention, whipping an deportation. Over 900 workers have complained that violence was used when they asked for wages or brought up a problem like health to their employer or agent.

Gov't blind or complicit?

The above statistics should be an alarm bell for the government to wake up to the serious human rights violations of migrant workers. But the government agencies, in particular, the Immigration department, the Police and the Labour Department have denied the workers their right to redress.
Less than 10 percent of the workers could get back some wages and return. 90 percent of the workers were forced to return due to fear of arrest, unable to sustain themselves or were arrested and deported.
All the workers whose passports were held by the employer or the recruitment agency made police reports but no investigations were done although it was an offence to hold the passport of another person under the Passports Act. No employer nor recruitment agency have been punished under this Act.
The Immigration department has a policy where the worker can renew his special pass for three months only and if his case is yet to be settled, he has to leave the country, and return when the court case resumes under his own expenses. Many of the workers did not even have the passport to get a special visa. Their employers had immediately cancelled the work permit when the worker left the workplace to lodge a complaint against the employer.
All the workers who were recruited and placed under outsourcing companies paid the recruitment agency in the source country like Bangladesh and Nepal between RM9,000 - 15,000 for the work in Malaysia. The workers took loans to get the job here and yet 6,772 workers from Tenaganita's case files did not have any work. The workers were in a debt bondage situation, cheated by the outsourcing companies through the support of Malaysia's government machinery, the Home Ministry.
The issuance of work permits and calling visas freely without proper verification by the Home Ministry requires serious explanations from the Minister. Earlier this year during the trial of Wahid Md Don, the former director general of immigration for corruption, witnesses in the trial stated that the money paid for visas was for political financing.

One witness had paid more than RM 1.2 million. Tenaganita's investigations reveal that recruitment agencies had to pay up to RM2,000 for every visa to the Immigration department officials as part of “processing” fees. The rapid registration of over 200 outsourcing companies in 2006 and 2007 and mass recruitment of over 300,000 Bangladeshi workers in 2006 and 2007 and 2008 prior to the 12th general election, fits the puzzle of money from poor migrant workers used for political financing to maintain an oppressive regime.

Modern day slavery

Domestic workers are another group of workers who remain unrecognised as workers but defined as servants. In spite of trade unions, the Bar Council, Tenaganita and other civil society organisations repeatedly calling the government to give a paid day off once a week, for a decent minimum wage, passports to be held by domestic workers and a proper standardised contract, the government wants to continue to keep a legal, policy framework that is exploitative and places the domestic worker in a condition of slavery, unprotected in private domain.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Indonesia remains in limbo for the sole reason that Indonesia wants the basic rights of its workers with a decent wage to be respected and defined in the MOU.

Therefore what we see, from our case management is that migrant workers are in a state of bonded labor, forced to work because of debt bondage or the work permit disallows them to move to another employer and thus forced to work in abusive and exploitative work conditions.

The Malaysian government has also failed to heed the call by civil society and trade unions for a comprehensive policy on the recruitment, placement and employment of migrant workers in the country. It has also yet to come out with a decent minimum wage structure. The exploitation and abuse of migrants has been further compounded with subcontracting of labor and deregulation of labour where thousands of workers have been excluded from protection of rights.

The legal framework and the lack of clear policies with perceptions that migrants are a national security threat has increased the vulnerability of migrants to being arrested, detained and deported, to being discriminated, their rights violated with impunity and consequently forced to submit to such conditions of work which constitute modern day slavery.

“While we commend the government for the enactment of the Anti Trafficking in Person's Act with amendments made to recognise labour officers as enforcers of the Act, this Act will remain window dressing and a public relations exercise if there is no commitment to put into place a comprehensive policy framework with an end to corruption and introducing clear mechanisms and oversight for good governance in migration.

There is an imminent need to end the practices of slavery and the slave market for profits, political gain to power and corruption that will destroy this country's economic development and sustainability. If the government is committed to the building of a singular Asean community by 2015, it must respect fundamental human rights of all migrant workers with decent work and decent wage.

Irene Fernandez is executive director.of NGO Tenaganita.

Joy to the World, the Lord is Come!

2010-12-25T04:28:00.000+07:00

Joy to the World , the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.

Joy to the World, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.

Caning continues

2010-12-19T05:05:00.000+07:00

Punishment remains despite international pressure

Malay Mail

KUALA LUMPUR: Caning will remain as a form of punishment in Malaysia as the government sees no hurry to review the controversial practice.

Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz, the minister in charge of law affairs, said the matter had not been raised at the Cabinet level.

“It (judicial caning) remains for now. If it needs to be reviewed, it will be discussed in Cabinet, but it has not been brought up. We’ll just wait and see,” he told The Malay Mail.

The Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department was responding to a call made by human rights group Amnesty International urging Malaysia to abolish the punishment.

Amnesty’s Asia-Pacific programme researcher Lance Latigg had told a Press conference here the practice was a “severe violation of human rights”.

The London-based group, in its recently released book A Blow to Humanity: Torture by Judicial Caning in Malaysia, claimed up to 10,000 prisoners in Malaysia were caned every year, with 6,000 being illegal immigrants from neighbouring countries.The group also urged neighbouring countries such as Indonesia to pressure Malaysia into abolishing judicial caning.

Nazri, however, said Amnesty could lobby for other countries to pressure Malaysia.

“Latigg spoke to me. He said he would raise this issue with Indonesia and other countries. That is not a problem. They have every right to do so. However, only we have the right to make decisions in this country. Other people cannot dictate that to us.”

Malaysia attracted international attention after Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, a Muslim woman, was sentenced to six strokes of the rotan and a fine last year for consuming alcohol in public. The case received hostile response, especially from human rights groups and women’s rights activists. Kartika’s sentence was eventually reduced to community service.

Singapore too attracted widespread condemnation in 1994 when American teenager Michael Fay, then 18, was sentenced to six lashes upon pleading guilty to vandalism after confessing to spray-painting and tossing eggs at several vehicles.

Spare the whip, say NGOs

KUALA LUMPUR: Human rights activists want the government to abolish caning as a form of punishment.

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) told The Malay Mail they were opposed to de facto law minister Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz's stand on continuing with caning sentences.

Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) commissioner Muhammad Sha'ani Abdullah said: "Malaysia, as a member of the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council, is expected to ratify and comply with international human rights conventions, so the argument that Malaysia adopts 'progressive realisation' is not a reasonable defence to delay ratification of conventions against torture.

"There is no advantage for Malaysia in avoiding the ratification, and it is also in line with the government's 'People First, Performance Now' promise."

Tenaganita director Irene Fernandez, whose organisation promotes the rights of women, migrants and refugees, said: "We have said for a long time that caning is wrong. Caning has become a tool of torture. We believe offences under the Immigration Act is not crime as offenders usually had no proper documents or overstayed. Caning of such offenders is not just unfair, it is torture.

"Back when the law against human trafficking was enacted, there was no whipping punishment for traffickers. At the time, Nazri himself said there was no whipping because according to the UN, it is wrong. So, caning as a form of punishment should be abolished."

Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram) chairman K. Arumugam said: "We support Amnesty International's call for Malaysia to abolish caning. Suaram is against capital and corporal punishment as it is contrary to our constitutional guarantee of the right to life."

US embassy cables: Burma's democracy movement being held back by 'uncles'

2010-12-15T07:10:00.000+07:00

The Guardian

Monday, 14 July 2008, 06:56
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 RANGOON 000557
SIPDIS
DEPT FOR EAP/MLS, DRL, AND IO
PACOM FOR FPA
EO 12958 DECL: 07/13/2018
TAGS PGOV, PREL, PHUM, BM
SUBJECT: CONTINUING THE PURSUIT OF DEMOCRACY IN BURMA
RANGOON 00000557 001.2 OF 004
Classified By: P/E Chief Leslie Hayden for Reasons 1.4 (b) & (d)

1. (SBU) Embassy Rangoon pol/econ chief departs Post this week after ending a two-year tour that saw the largest political uprising in Burma in twenty years, the arrest and imprisonment of the pro-democracy opposition's most talented leaders, and the worst natural disaster in Burma's recorded history. We asked her to share her candid observations on the current political situation, and her recommendations on how best to advance our democratic goals.

-------------------

The Senior Generals

-------------------

2. (C) The Burma army remains firmly in control throughout most of the country, with Senior General Than Shwe retaining almost absolute power. He has the final word on all significant political and economic decisions. While outsiders may portray him as an uneducated, crass, and blundering man, he has successfully consolidated and held onto power for several years, while at the same time building lucrative relationships with his energy hungry neighbors that undermine Western efforts to cripple his regime.

3. (C) The generals keep their power through a vast system of economic patronage, not unlike a Western style Mafia. Military-owned enterprises control every profit-making natural resource and industry in the country. Economic prosperity can only be enjoyed by rising thorough the ranks of the Army, or having extremely close ties to the senior generals. This is why China's urging to the generals to begin reforming Burma's economy falls on deaf ears. Economic liberalization and reform would require the generals to dismantle the very system that ensures their power. Dismantling this system will be one of the biggest challenges for any future democratic leader of Burma.

4. (C) Rumors of splits at the top of the regime are the result of uninformed analysis and wishful thinking of the exiles and outside observers. While the senior generals may disagree from time-to-time amongst themselves (as witnessed after Nargis), they follow the orders of Than Shwe. The senior generals are keenly aware that if they do not stand together, they will fall together. True democratic change will not likely happen until the top two generals, Than Shwe and Maung Aye, are off the scene. Both are extremely concerned for the safety and financial security of themselves and their families. Third-ranking general Thura Shwe Mann is rumored to be Than Shwe's pick for Burma's President in 2010, but if Than Shwe and Maung Aye are still alive, they will likely pull his strings from behind the scenes. Sources close to Thura Shwe Mann tell us he is smart, sophisticated, and well-aware of Burma's problems. Some talented Burmese intellectuals and political dissidents tell us they pass him policy papers that are reportedly solicited on his behalf. However, he is intimately involved in Burma's corruption, primarily through his sons' business interests.

5. (C) Several of our sources close to high and mid-ranking military officers tell us that some of the regional commanders are reform-minded and aware of the need for political and economic reform. However, most of the military believe that working within Burma's current military system is the only way to bring about this change while maintaining stability. While some officers begrudgingly respect Aung San Suu Kyi, they do not sympathize with the pro-democracy opposition in general. We should not expect an imminent coup to save us from the hard-line senior generals.

--------------------------------------------- --

Aung San Suu Kyi and the Pro-Democracy Movement

--------------------------------------------- --

6. (C) Since the September protests, the most dynamic and talented leaders of Burma's pro-democracy movement have been jailed, left the country, or remain in hiding. Tellingly, the NLD remain free. While many outside Burma perpetuate the

RANGOON 00000557 002.2 OF 004

impression of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party as a large movement with massive support waiting to take the Parliamentary seats they won in the 1990 election, the reality is quite different. Without a doubt, Aung San Suu Kyi remains a popular and beloved figure of the Burman majority, but this status is not enjoyed by her party. Already frustrated with the sclerotic leadership of the elderly NLD "Uncles", the party lost even more credibility within the pro-democracy movement when its leaders refused to support the demonstrators last September, and even publicly criticized them.

7. (C) Many of the younger political activists are turning away from the NLD and preparing to run in the 2010 parliamentary elections, to effect political change any way they can. This includes members of 88 Generation. There is reportedly an ongoing, heated debate among the 88 Generation leaders in Insein prison on whether or not the groups' members should contest the election, with Ko Ko Gyi advocating members do so, and Min Ko Naing opting for a boycott. Those who want to run tell us they do not agree with the new constitution and despise the regime's roadmap to democracy. However, with the absence of any alternative, they see the new Parliament as a possible mechanism for dialogue between the military, the pro-democracy opposition, and the ethnic cease-fire groups.

8. (C) The way the Uncles run the NLD indicates the party is not the last great hope for democracy and Burma. The Party is strictly hierarchical, new ideas are not solicited or encouraged from younger members, and the Uncles regularly expel members they believe are "too active." NLD youth repeatedly complain to us they are frustrated with the party leaders. Repeated overtures from and "summits" with the leaders of the 88 Generation in 2007 failed to result in any significant cooperation between the factions. Indeed, lack of unity among the pro-democracy opposition remains one of the biggest obstacles to democratic change in Burma.

9. (C) The "Uncles" have repeatedly rebuffed the most dynamic and creative members of the pro-democracy opposition, who reinvigorated the pro-democracy movement throughout 2006 and 2007 by strategically working to promote change through grass-roots human rights and political awareness and highlighting the regime's economic mismanagement. Nor has the party made any effort to join forces with the technically sophisticated bloggers and young, internet-savvy activists, who have been so clever at getting out the images which repeatedly damaged the regime and undermined its international credibility. Instead, the Uncles spend endless hours discussing their entitlements from the 1990 elections and abstract policy which they are in no position to enact. XXXXXXXXXXXX Additionally, most MPs-elect show little concern for the social and economic plight of most Burmese, and therefore, most Burmese regard them as irrelevant.

----------------------------

The Ethnic Cease-Fire Groups

----------------------------

10. (C) The cease-fire groups remain an important component of Burma's future political stability and it is noteworthy that none have chosen to support Aung San Suu Kyi and her party. Instead, they have entered dialogue with the regime, at the same time cutting lucrative concession deals for many of groups' leaders. However, many leaders of the cease-fire groups have told us they would cast their lot with whomever best looked out for their interests. However badly the regime does this, the NLD has repeatedly missed opportunities to reach out to the cease-fire groups to demonstrate that they would. Instead, it has consistently issued statements calling for a dialogue between the NLD and regime first, before the ethnic cease-fire groups are brought into the mix. They have also continually feuded with ethnic MPs-elect on the Committee to Represent the People's Parliament (CRPP).

RANGOON 00000557 003.2 OF 004

11. (C) It is these long-held ethnic tensions that has kept the cease-fire groups from defecting from their dialogue with the regime to form an alliance with the NLD. Many of Burma's neighbors, including China, are aware of the tension between the NLD and the ethnic nationalities. The NLD's continuing alienation of the ethnic minority groups gives credence to the regime's most effective argument with its neighbors and ASEAN: that the military is the only force capable of guaranteeing stability in Burma.

12. (C) The recent statement Aung San Suu Kyi released through UN Special Envoy Gambari indicated she is aware of this problem and wants to rectify it. The overture she offered to the ethnic nationalities was welcomed by the cease-fire group leaders with whom we spoke. But her party failed to follow up on her initiative and issued only a half-hearted invitation for the ethnic leaders to visit them at NLD headquarters in Rangoon. Once again, they reduced the role of the ethnics to second-class supplicants. The timing of ASSK's statement was strategic: just before the referendum on a constitution, which many of the cease-fire groups were unhappy with because the regime had failed to include key compromises promised by former PM Khin Nyunt before his ouster. A genuine overture from the NLD offered the best chance yet to split the cease-fire groups from the regime and undermine its credibility with its regional supporters. The Uncles failed to use this opportunity, so the cease-fire groups continue their relationship with the regime.

-------------------------

Where do We Go From Here?

-------------------------

13. (C) Throughout the country, there is still widespread and growing frustration with the regime for its brutal and incompetent rule. Though most Burmese do not believe the NLD will be able to bring about democratic change, at least while ASSK is under house arrest, they have not given up on working for democracy. Instead, they are taking matters into their own hands and creatively working in what space is available to improve the lives of their communities.

14. (C) Like the many community-based organizations (CBOs), religious organizations, and civil society groups that responded to Cyclone Nargis while the international community was shut out, many dissidents and ordinary Burmese are creatively trying to incorporate democratic principles into their civil society programs, including private-tuition schools, environmental programs, health education, and religious organizations. Through this process, change will come about more slowly than most want, but it is a channel that functions where most other options were shut down by the regime after the September 2007 demonstrations. It is also a method that promotes change from the grass roots, teaching community responsibility at the local level, rather than a top-down movement by the urban, intellectual elite. A strong civil society is something we should seek and encourage in Burma. It will make any democratic transition in Burma more likely to succeed.

15. (C) Ending Burma's isolation will also be integral to any successful long-term change in the country. No matter how democratic transition comes about in Burma, the military will be involved given its vast control over the political and economic structures of the country. We should make an effort to seek out and speak with the more progressive military officers and to those who have access to the senior generals. Their hostility to democratic change is motivated by paranoia and distrust of the West, and a belief that we seek to punish them and obliterate a significant role for them in Burma's future. If we want to counter this, we should pursue dialogue directly with them rather than through intermediaries who can sometimes garble messages.

16. (C) If we do decide to speak with the generals again, we should do it strategically. Dialogue could be used as a tool to bring the generals into the twenty-first century.

RANGOON 00000557 004.2 OF 004

Discussions could take place on the margins of international fora, exposing them to the outside world and its diplomatic norms, juxtaposing Burma's backwardness against the modern world, which could cause greater realization among the generals about their country's lack of development. Careful preparation could be made before such events to make sure Burma's neighbors send the same messages to the generals during their bilateral meetings. Such unity of message was extremely effective in persuading the regime to open up to international assistance after Cyclone Nargis.

---------------------------

Give a Little, Get a Little

---------------------------

17. (C) While our economic sanctions give us the moral high-ground, they are largely ineffective because they are not comprehensive. Burma's biggest client states refuse to participate in them. However, the generals despise the sanctions and want them removed because they challenge the regime's legitimacy. If we really want to see the generals make progress, we need to show them what they will get in return. This means being willing to gradually remove sanctions in exchange for true steps toward dialogue and political change.

18. (C) We should start small and hold them to real action (unlike the sham dialogue they purported to initiate with Aung San Suu Kyi last November). If they do make concrete progress, we should be ready to offer them something. For instance, removing them from Tier 3 on the Trafficking in Persons rankings, or taking them off the Narcotics Majors list, areas where the regime has actually made some progress. This should be a gradual process that would be based only on the condition of concrete results. Large rewards should come only with large compromises, such as lifting the visa ban if they release Aung San Suu Kyi. We may also want to consider putting security guarantees on the table for the most senior generals and their families if we are serious about removing them from the scene. As we move toward the 2010 parliamentary elections, it may be a strategic time to begin talks with them about such an agreement. Allowing international election monitors, lifting laws that restrict free and fair debate, and freeing key political prisoners could be tied to lifting specific sanctions.

19. (C) While talking to the generals may be unpalatable, their firm control over Burma and the weakness of the pro-democracy opposition are a reality we must consider when working to promote change in Burma. The prospect for democratic change in the near future is low, but despite the setbacks after the September demonstrations, there is hope change may eventually come. After many years of waiting for the outside world to help free them from the generals' despotic rule, many Burmese are finding creative ways to take control of their country through community-based organizations and building the capacity of civil society. Through these organizations, leaders may emerge who will run in the 2010 elections and work for democratic change.

20. (C) We should seek every opportunity to support and increase the capacity of Burma's nascent civil society by expanding humanitarian assistance inside the country that promotes self-reliance, conflict resolution, and respect for human rights. Such a policy will have the added benefit of expanding our influence and increasing our access throughout the country. Not only will this approach increase our knowledge of the subtle changes occurring inside Burma, but it will strengthen our position and influence inside when change does come, so we can assist the Burmese to reform their political and economic systems in a manner that best promotes U.S. economic and strategic interests. Above all, our Burma policy should be focused on helping those Burmese who are working to bring about democratic change themselves, for that is the only way it can realistically come. VILLAROSA

Advocating children's rights

2010-12-11T00:38:00.000+07:00

thestar online

Children’s rights take the spotlight at this year’s Human Rights Day celebration in Malaysia, which falls today.

IN an ideal world, parents and guardians of children function as their protectors. Yet the cruel reality is that parents themselves can turn out to be a child’s worst nightmare, either through outright physical abuse or more subtle, but no less hurtful, forms of abuse ranging from neglect to emotional abuse.

“It is sad that we see that in many cases of abuse, the perpetrators are the parents themselves. But there is not enough analysis on why that happens,” said Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir, who was roped in by the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) to be one of the advocates for this year’s campaign targeting child abuse called “Get On Board”.

“When I read child abuse cases in the newspapers, I automatically look at the ages of the parents. Invariably, they are young, mostly in their 20s, and they tend to have not just one child, but several. And when you look at the age of their eldest child, you can see that they had the child very early in life, dating back to their teenage years,” said Marina in an interview at Wisma UN, Kuala Lumpur, on Monday.

“The 20s are a time of enjoyment, of exploration, of having fun with your friends. But when you have to handle a crying child at home, among other responsibilities that come with being a parent, it is understandable that frustrations can arise,” said Marina, a mother of three who is quick to add that this is not to imply that all young parents will end up being child abusers.

“Parenting is a huge responsibility, even if you get married in your 30s. Imagine if you are still somewhat a child yourself,” said Marina in addressing the issue of marrying young.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child as well as Malaysia’s Child Act 2001 both state that a child is anyone under 18 years old. Just last Saturday, the wedding of 14-year-old Siti Maryam Mahmod to a 23-year-old teacher was celebrated at the Federal Territory Mosque in Kuala Lumpur, along with 249 other couples. The groom is described as a family friend, and apparently, the girl’s parents liked him very much to the extent they decided to “matchmake” them.

To the Government’s credit, it has made known its stand that it does not condone child marriages – or at least, this is what Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil had said when asked about the latest incident. She remarked that Siti Maryam is still a child, even though she may have the Syariah Court’s permission to get married, and that the Government will look into the matter. Currently, Muslim girls below 16 can marry with the Syariah Court’s consent while non-Muslim girls between 16 and 18 can marry with the approval of the Mentri Besar or Chief Minister.

Marina was more forthright: “Such marriages constitute a form of abuse, and I hope that Shahrizat holds her ground. The act of marrying off a child is denying a child his or her complete childhood. And children having children, this is a form of abuse as well.

“The best thing is to ban people from marrying too young on the basis that they are not yet ready for it. People may say they are ready, but I don’t think that is the case,” said Marina, who is also distressed at the lack of public outrage surrounding the latest publicised case of child marriage.

“Back in our grandparents’ era, people did get married young, but child marriages are things that you normally associate with backward, developing countries. But here, it seems that child/teen marriages are something worthy of celebration when in fact they should be banned.

“When I was a teen, it was ingrained in our minds that being pregnant at that age will spoil your entire life. Now people talk as if marrying is so easy and convenient. Why are we so proud of this when we should be embarrassed?”

The way forward for our children and teens is to equip them with the right kind of knowledge about biology, social skills, and other skills necessary to cope with the turbulence of teenage years.

“The teenage years are fraught with various challenges for both boys and girls. We have to teach them how to manage this transition, as it is a confusing time, even for boys. If we don’t equip our children with the right kind of education and sufficient education, then we cannot complain, and should just accept that teen pregnancy will continue unabated,” said Marina.

“How you get pregnant is also how you get sexually transmitted diseases. But how not to get pregnant is also just as important,” she said.

Marina said that the various ministries and departments still have a silo mentality when it comes to imparting knowledge about sexuality to the young. “It encompasses areas ranging from education to health to gender rights. We also need the voice of young people as their input is important.”

She added that the topic of boy-girl relationship remains an evergreen issue. “It is the most popular topic for the audience of 3R,” said Marina, who pioneered the television programme more than 10 years ago. 3R, which stands for Respect Relax Respond, is an award-winning programme that addresses a range of issues affecting the young – like family ties, careers, romantic relationships, sexuality, and substance abuse, among many others.

“Education empowers, and if we don’t have enough information, we will make the wrong choice, but I think getting married (very young) ranks among the worst choices,” she said in response to the tendency of some quarters to prescribe marriage as the solution to a range of problems ranging from teen pregnancy to baby dumping and promiscuity.

Things might change for the better though, as by next year, all schoolchildren will be taught sex education as a standalone subject, instead of as part of other subjects. On Monday, Deputy Education Minister Datuk Dr Puad Zarkashi told reporters at the Parliament lobby that the subject would be called Reproductive Health and Social Education, or PEERS (Pendidikan Kesihatan Reproduktif dan Social).

PEERS, which will cover topics ranging from personal hygiene to self-respect and negotiation skills, like how to say no (not just to sex, but a variety of things like smoking, alcohol and drugs), will be taught for 30 minutes a week in primary schools and 40 minutes twice a month in secondary schools. For those who still wonder whether this is the real deal, Puad revealed that the subject is intentionally not called “sex education” as most Malaysians still find that term too loaded.

On the wider issue of child abuse, Unicef said that with an average of seven cases of abuse reported each day in 2008, more needs to be done to unearth what is believed to be many more hidden cases, especially instances where the child may not display any physical signs of being abused. For that, the agency recommends that people get in touch with the National Population and Family Development Board (LPPKN) through http://www.lppkn.gov.my/or call the hotline 15999.

Regardless of location, everyone will have the chance to speak up against all forms of child abuse this month. Hosted by Unicef, the Get On Board campaign is currently running at .uniteagainstabuse.my. The digital signatures collected there will be presented to the Government to petition for further action to raise awareness about the issue so that the rights of children can be safeguarded.

The theme for Human Rights Day 2010 is Speak Up, Stop Discrimination.

More information can be found at www.un.org/en/events/humanrightsday/2010/

279 Killings, 113 Indonesian Deaths by Malaysian Police Horrify Activists

2010-12-08T07:55:00.000+07:00

Jakarta Globe, AFP & Antara

Jakarta. Malaysian rights activists on Saturday demanded action over the “horrifying” number of killings by police, including 113 Indonesians out of a total of 279 killed over the past decade.

“These are extrajudicial killings. The numbers are very significant. It is a major shock to us,” R. Sivarasa, a human rights lawyer and opposition lawmaker, told a press conference organized by leading rights group Suaram.

The group cited police data produced during a recent trial that showed 279 alleged criminals, including 61 ethnic Malaysian Indians, 42 Malay Muslims and 113 Indonesians, were shot dead over a period of nine years from 2000, leading to charges that certain ethnic groups were being particularly targeted.

Nine people were killed by the police in 2000 and the number surged to 88 in 2009.

N. Surendran, an activist with Lawyers for Liberty, said police were too quick to open fire.

“There is a sense of shock and horror among the public. People are upset. Without a doubt the police force has members who are trigger-happy, with a culture to shoot to kill,” he said.

Surendran urged the Malaysian government to intervene and “urgently put an end” to the killings, calling 279 deaths “excessively high.”

The Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, when contacted by the Jakarta Globe, said that it was not aware of the report.

However, Choirul Hadi, from the Indonesian Migrant Workers Union (SBMI), said he had heard information about Indonesian migrant workers who were shot dead by the police in Malaysia.

“They were shot after being suspected of smuggling drugs,” he told the Globe, although he could not provide any numbers. He did question the self-defense claim from the Malaysian police, since the victims were not “high-level smugglers but only couriers who did not carry weapons.”

Earlier this year, a team from the National Police traveled to Malaysia to investigate the case of three migrant workers allegedly shot to death by Malaysian police in March.

Dai Bachtiar, the Indonesian ambassador to Malaysia, said he had received reports that the three workers — identified as Musdi, Abd Sanu and Muhlis — had been shot by police.

They were reportedly driving a sedan and crashed it into a police car.

Malaysian media have reported that Selangor Police Chief Khalid Abu Bakar said the three Indonesians were shot on March 16 because they had threatened police with weapons.

Meanwhile, Indonesian and Malaysian officials discussed migrant worker issues during the two-day meeting of their joint commission for bilateral cooperation in Bali.

The Foreign Affairs Ministry’s director general for Asian Pacific and African affairs, Hamzah Thayeb, said on Tuesday that officials from both countries stated their commitment to solve problems with migrant workers together, by agreeing to try to collect data on all Indonesians working in Malaysia.

“Unfortunately, most Indonesian workers who are facing legal problems or are being abused by their employer in Malaysia are actually illegal workers. That’s why we find it difficult to locate them or provide services to them,” Hamzah said.

Human rights advocates decry Malaysia's caning punishment as torture

2010-12-07T01:11:00.000+07:00

Source: dscriber

In Malaysia, more than 60 offenses, including illegal immigration, are punishable by a harsh caning. Though a doctor is made available to those who are bound to a cross and struck in the bare buttocks by an officer wielding a long cane like a bat, some of those who have received the cane wonder why. Rawi, an Indonesian migrant caned earlier this year, told the human rights group Amnesty International that "the doctor asked me if I had a passport. I said, 'Yes, but not with me.' The doctor then smiled. The doctor smiled at me in a mocking way. This made me feel pain in my heart.”

That physicians are helping to facilitate what Amnesty alleges is a growing trend in caning "makes them complicit in this human rights violation." "This is in violation not only of international human rights law in general, but also of internationally recognized codes of medical ethics," Amnesty said in a report released today, calling on the Malaysian government to immediately halt the canings that are carried out on thousands of criminals each year, leaving not only physical scars, but deep psychological wounds.

Compounding problems are new strict immigration rules in Malaysia that have left tens of thousands of refugees and migrant workers on the wrong side of the law.

The practice dates to the 1800s, when Malaysia was a British colony. According to Amnesty, a cane may rip open a person's skin, damaging muscle fibers. "The pain is so severe that victims often lose consciousness."

Amnesty points out that corporal punishment for prisoners is banned under international law. As such, Malaysian officials and employees could be open to prosecution for torture crimes. However, the country has not ratified the United Nations Convention Against Torture, the optional protocol, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Suu Kyi calls on Thailand to be kind to refugees

2010-12-02T09:42:00.000+07:00

asiaone news

Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi yesterday called on Thais to be kind to migrants and refugees from her country.

"We know it is not easy for Thailand to cope with the situation, but we would so appreciate it if you could do what you can for them," she said in a phone interview with Bangkok-based Thai-Asean News Network.

Thailand has been sheltering more than 100,000 Burmese refugees for over two decades, and about 2 million migrants from the country currently have jobs in the Kingdom. Recently, more Burmese people have fled to Thailand as troops fight with armed ethnic groups along the border.

Suu Kyi, who was released from house arrest early this month, expressed her gratitude to Thais for helping the Burmese people.

"We would like you to know that we wish to be your good friend and good neighbour," she said.

She also spoke to fellow citizens in Thailand and promised they would not be forgotten, and that she would do what she could to bring them back home as soon as possible.

Suu Kyi also called on the government to not just engage with her country's ruling junta, but also the opposition, which is working to bring democracy into the country.

"We would very much like all governments to engage with not just the government of Burma, but also with us," she said.

The Burmese opposition leader, who won the Nobel prize for her dedication to democracy in a military-ruled country, is now trying to get her National League for Democracy (NLD) party to play a significant role in the country's politics.

The immediate task, though, was for the party to re-register because officials dissolved it for failing to comply with the new political party law and refusing to take part in the November 7 election, she said.

Another task would be for the party to reach out to the younger generation and encourage them to play a bigger role in the struggle for democracy, Suu Kyi said.

The political atmosphere in Burma changed a lot while she was in detention and one of the most important changes was that the new generation was paying more attention to politics and joining the NLD, she said.

The party plans to build a network of young people across the country and encourage them to work for democracy, she said.

-The Nation/Asia News Network

ISA revamp: More than lip service needed, say NGOs

2010-11-30T10:34:00.000+07:00

http://www.mmail.com.my/

PETALING JAYA: Amendments to the Internal Security Act (ISA) announced by Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishamuddin Hussein last week should not be cosmetic changes to pacify the public, say non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

They call for the ISA detention period to be shortened and the abolishment of the Act ultimately.

S. Arutchelvan, a director of human rights organisation Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram), said: "Based on my experience, most of the time abuses happen during the first two weeks of detention. Even if the detention period is shortened, abuses will still take place but this is something that must be prevented."

As such, the amendments must take into consideration the elements of legal representation.

"The detainees should be given access to their families and their lawyers unlike now where family members often do not even have a clue to where their detained family member is being held.

"Suaram was formed in 1987 in the wake of Operasi Lalang that year in which the ISA was invoked to detain 106 people, mainly Opposition members.Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) commissioner Muhammad Sha'ani Abdullah said for a start, the ISA detention period should be shortened."

Any detention without trial does not comply with human rights standards.

"Amendments to the ISA should also provide an avenue for whoever is detained to have the right to be heard in an open court," he said.

"Shortening the detention period is not much but it's a start towards abolishing the ISA altogether."

Suhakam was established by Parliament in 1999 in the wake of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim controversy.

Nora Murat, executive director of Amnesty International Malaysia which was also set up in 1999, said: "ISA detainees should not be held longer than 14 days, just like in the Criminal Procedure Code in which a remand can only last 14 days.

If the authorities require an extension of the detention, the court should decide.

"While the government's move to amend the ISA is something positive, ultimately the ISA should be abolished."

Open letter to Thai PM regarding refugee issue alongside Thai-Burma border

2010-11-25T23:30:00.001+07:00

Shanland.Org

Dear all,

Please sign the open letter to Thai PM regarding to refugee issue alongside Thai-Burma border. We will accept the signatures until mignight. We also kindly invite Thai and Foreign media for letter submission in front of House of Parliament on 26 Nov 2010 at 9.00 AM.

กรุณาร่วมลงชื่อในจดหมายเปิดผนึกต่อรัฐบาลไทยในประเด็นผู้ลี้ภัยชายแดนไทย-พม่า โดยข่าวล่าสุดรายงานว่าทหารพม่ากำลังจะเปิดฉากโจมตีกองกำลังกะเหรี่ยงพุทธอีกครั้งเร็วๆ นี้ โดยจะเปิดรับรายชื่อถึงเวลาเที่ยงคืนวันนี้

นอกจากนี้ องค์กรเพื่อนพม่ายังขอเชิญสื่อมวลชนร่วมทำข่าวการยื่นจดหมายเปิดผนึกให้กับรัฐบาลไทย ในวันที่ 26 พฤศจิกายน 2553 เวลา 9.00 น. ณ บริเวณหน้าทำเนียบรัฐบาล

จึงเรียนมาเพื่อทราบและขอขอบคุณในความกรุณา

FOB

------------

November 26, 2010

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva

Office of the Prime Minister

Royal Thai Government

Pitsanolok Road, Dusit,

Bangkok

subject: Open letter to call for protection of civilians affected by war and armed conflict in Myanmar based on International Humanitarian Laws and human rights principles

Dear Prime Minister:

On November 7, 2010, the day of national elections in Myanmar, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) Brigade 5 took key positions at Myawaddy which resulted in the clashes between DKBA Brigade 5 and the Burmese government troops in Myawaddy town and Valey Village in Karen State. Later on November 8, the fighting broke out near Burmese-Thai border, just opposite of Mae-Sot and Pob-Phra in Tak province. Moreover, the clashes between DKBA and SPDC troops escalated to the Myanmar border town of Phaya Tong Su in Mon State, opposite of Three Pagoda Pass in Sangklaburi, Kanchanaburi province.

As a result, some 25,000 civilians fled the fighting into Thai border in the morning of November 8. Thai authorities provided temporary shelters for Burmese refugees in Mae-Sot while international humanitarian organizations and local residents provided food and healthcare for them. In the morning of November 9, Thai authorities publicly announced in local dialects that “Now the fighting ends, everybody is safe to return home.” The Burmese refugees were sent back to Myanmar in that morning. However, it turned out that the fighting between SPDC troops and DKBA has continued in some areas. Therefore, Burmese refugees who were sent back in the morning crossed the border to Thailand again.

Burmese refugees gave the reason for returning to Thai border again that their safety cannot be guaranteed if they stay in Myanmar. The report from local organizations states that some civilians were killed and injured from the clash. Some males were forced to be porters for Burmese troops. Refugees who fled to Thai border for the second time went into hiding because they could be arrested and forcibly returned to Myanmar if they were found by Thai authorities. At present, local organizations are providing food and healthcare for four small groups of 300 refugees who are in hiding in Mae-Sot and Pob-Phra, Tak province.

Currently, the safety of civilians living in the town of Myawaddy and Phaya Tong Su cannot be guaranteed because of the ongoing armed conflicts which may lead to other forms of human rights violations; for example, the right to life security and private property, forced conscription to be porters, and rape and sexual harassment against ethnic civilians. The future possibility of human rights violations frightens civilians and forces them to continue hiding along Thai border.

With our deep concern of the ill-faith of fellow human-beings and Thailand’s obligations to comply with International Humanitarian Law and universal human rights principles, the organizations and individuals attached at the end of this open letter call for the Thai government and other authorities responsible for refugees to provide the following measures to protect those civilians affected by armed conflicts.

Provide protection and temporary shelters for civilians affected by armed conflicts who are in hiding along Thai border based on the International Humanitarian Laws and human rights principles. Guarantee that the decision on repatriation should be made by the working committee which consists of Thai authorities, international humanitarian organizations, and local organizations and based on non-refoulement principle.
Seek collaboration and coordination with international humanitarian organizations and local organizations to evaluate the situation and prepare for refugee protection once receive a warning of shortcoming fighting.
Temporary shelters for civilians affected by armed conflicts should be located in the safe zone and suitable of refugees to live with dignity with easy-access by roads. The temporary shelters should be able to protect refugees from changing weather, quipped with toilets and water, and enough warm clothes. During the stay, enough food and drinking water should be provided and special measures for vulnerable groups such as children, women, and elderly should be implemented.
Distribute food, drinking water, and medicine to the returning refugees during the repatriation process to help them survive at the beginning of their re-settlement.
In the long term, establish a special working committee on refugees which consists of Thai authorities, international humanitarian organizations and local organizations.

Your Sincerely,

............................

Refugees' right to work in Malaysia

2010-11-21T09:42:00.000+07:00

MMAIL.COM.MY

...to be discussed in special Cabinet meeting on foreign labour next month
Joseph Kaos Jr
Thursday, November 18th, 2010 12:44:00

PETALING JAYA: The government will decide next month whether refugees will be allowed to work in the country.

Home Ministry secretary-general Datuk Seri Mahmood Adam told The Malay Mail yesterday that a special Cabinet meeting to discuss issues on foreign workers would be held in mid-December and chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

“It was scheduled for last week but had to be postponed as Muhyiddin was away on a working visit to Japan,” he said.

“So, we’ll only know what the Cabinet decides on refugees next month.”

Earlier this year, the Home Ministry had set up a laboratory, comprising representatives from various ministries and agencies, to study foreign workers issues.

“The laboratory came up with about 55 proposals, including the refugee matter, which will all be forwarded to the special Cabinet meeting,” said Mahmood.

“These are merely initiatives and proposals, and whether each will be approved or not is the prerogative of the Cabinet."

According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, Malaysia has 90,000 registered refugees as of September.

Refugees are currently permitted to do only odd-jobs in this country.

Malaysia does not have special laws for refugees and they are considered illegal immigrants. Issues involving them come under the Immigration Act.

Mahmood said the Home Ministry was mulling suggestions by various quarters, particularly the Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC), that refugees be allowed to work here while waiting to be resettled to third countries.

The MTUC had hoped they would be permitted to work in labour-strapped sectors to help overcome labour shortages and reduce the need to bring in foreign workers, and believed their proposal would enhance Malaysia's image as a humane nation.

Aung San Suu Kyi, a hero for all of us

2010-11-19T07:45:00.000+07:00

The Gazzette

We're with Barack Obama: Aung San Suu Kyi is one of our heroes, too. Her constancy, dignity, clarity, and almost superhuman restraint, all deployed through long lonely years in the quest for a better life for the people of Myanmar, have made her a beacon of hope in a land languishing under a shameless and cynical military junta.

Freed last weekend after spending seven years -and 15 of the last 21 -under house arrest, Suu Kyi picked up where she left off, calling calmly for peaceful debate, national reconciliation, and a tranquil transition to democratic institutions. In her way, however, she also speedily turned up the heat; giving a speech and meeting with ex-officials of her National League for Democracy, which last spring was outlawed by the regime. She is now reportedly seeking legal methods to revive the party.

Suu Kyi must know the risks she runs, and at age 65 her regained freedom is surely truly precious to her. A lesser person would have slipped out of the country, collected her Nobel Prize, and retired to enjoy the adulation of the whole world.

But prisoners of conscience are nothing if not stubborn. "I may be detained again," Suu Kyi told CNN. "I don't think about it ... I just do what I can do at the moment." No wonder Obama called her "a hero of mine."

What surprises us is that the generals who run the country let her out of jail. True, she had served her fixed sentence, but military dictatorships have no more regard for legal niceties than they do for electoral ones, and national elections last week, won by the generals' cronies and toadies, were certainly a sham.

Myanmar-watchers think the release was the generals' attempt to win a small measure of respectability around the world. If so, it won't work. A prisoner of conscience is a powerful symbol of a country in chains, but so is a released prisoner of conscience. As long as 2,100 or more other political prisoners remain in Myanmar's prisons, as long as a fraudulently-elected "government" does the generals' bidding, and as long as Suu Kyi keeps calling for reform, the generals will have no respectability. And they dare not lock her away again.

Aung San Suu Kyi: another detention would be 'disaster’ for Burma

2010-11-15T04:36:00.001+07:00

So much hope – both at home in Burma and internationally – has been heaped on Aung San Suu Kyi’s slender shoulders it is difficult to see how the country’s democracy leader can live up to those expectations.

Two failed peaceful pro-democracy uprisings, the last the so-called Saffron Revolution led by revered monks just three years ago, were brutally crushed by the military and left thousands dead.

The failures further cowed an already downtrodden population leaving them frightened and investing ever higher expectations of political change in Ms Suu Kyi, who has spent most of the last two decades in some form of detention because of her opposition to the military-ruled country.

But analysts caution that her supporters and the Burmese in general must curb their expectations of the woman who has spent 15 of the past 21 years detained and cut off from the world.

By Ian MacKinnon

9:00PM GMT 14 Nov 2010

The Telegraph News

Malaysian is working with UNHCR to relocate displaced persons

2010-11-13T04:55:00.002+07:00

Star Online

A TOTAL of 90,301 refugees from various countries were registered with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Kuala Lumpur as of Sept 1, said Deputy Foreign Minister A. Kohilan Pillay.

He told Hamim Samuri (BN-Ledang) that Malaysia was working with the UNHCR to send the refugees back to their country of origin or relocate them to other countries willing to accept them.

“A total of 49,082 refugees have been sent to third countries, 68% through the UNHCR and the rest via the International Organisation for Migration,” he said.

Kohilan said Malaysia was not a party to the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees 1951 and its 1967 Protocol.

“Since there is no specific law here for refugees, they are subjected to the Immigration Act. All of them are regarded as illegal immigrants,” he said.

Kohilan said the refugee issue was never raised by Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines or Thailand during bilateral talks.

“However, the embassies and high commissions based here would always assist in the documentation of refugees for relocation to other countries,” he said.

Kohilan told M. Kulasegaran (DAP-Ipoh Barat) that refugees were provided with medical aid and education programmes during their time here.

Deputy Home Minister Datuk Wira Abu Seman said 19 publications had been reprimanded for publishing content deemed as a threat against public order.

However, he said no publications had had their permits revoked.

Abu Seman said in a reply to Datuk Shamsul Anuar Nasarah (BN-Lenggong) that the Government would ensure that the media in the country was free of seditious, slanderous and insulting content.

Abu Seman said the ministry had also approved applications for permits for 76 newspapers in several languages.

UN refugee agency signals more fighting in Myanmar

2010-11-13T04:39:00.000+07:00

AFP News

GENEVA — The UN refugee agency said on Friday that most of the 15,000 people who fled from Myanmar earlier this week have returned from Thailand despite renewed post-election fighting near the border.

A spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Adrian Edwards said fighting reportedly erupted again overnight after the Thai army cleared their return, with the potential for more clashes around the Myanmar villages of Maekata and Halokani.

"As of today most of the 15,000 Myanmar refugees who fled into Thailand earlier this week have returned across the border," Edwards told journalists.

Sites in northern Thailand's Tak province emptied by Wednesday while all 3,000 refugees further south in Sanghklaburi had disappeared by early Friday, he added.

"In the light of the confused situation and the risks to safety, UNHCR is advocating with the Royal Thai government that refugees be given further time before being encouraged to return home," Edwards said.

UN human rights experts on Friday expressed concern about the impact of the earlier fighting and reiterated calls for the release of "over 2,200 prisoners of conscience" including jailed opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

"The elections were billed as one of the final elements of the so-called seven-step roadmap to democracy," the four experts said in a joint statement.

"However, the renewed clashes and resulting humanitarian crisis as civilians fled to a neighbouring State highlight the many unresolved challenges that Myanmar faces," they added in a statement.

"True democratic transition will require genuine dialogue with all stakeholders including Aung San Suu Kyi, and the various ethnic minorities that were excluded from the electoral process."

The statement was made by the Special Rapporteurs on human rights in Myanmar, Tomas Ojea Quintana, on the right to freedom of opinion, Frank La Rue, on human rights defenders, Margaret Sekaggyawas, and the chairman of the working group on arbitrary detention, El-Hadji Malick Sow.

President Obama says Myanmar junta 'stole' election

2010-11-08T21:47:00.000+07:00

AFP

NEW DELHI - U.S. President Barack Obama Monday accused the Myanmar junta of stealing the weekend election in the military-ruled country, sharpening his earlier criticism of the vote.

Citing Myanmar as an example of a country where a "bankrupt regime" imprisoned opponents and gunned down protesters, he said it was incumbent on all democracies to condemn repressive regimes.

"It is unacceptable to steal an election, as the regime in Burma (Myanmar) has done again for all the world to see," he said in a speech at the Indian parliament.

He also criticized his hosts for sometimes failing to speak out sufficiently for the rights of the repressed.

"If I can be frank, in international fora, India has often shied away from these issues," he said.

Once a staunch supporter of Myanmar's pro-democracy movement, India began engaging the junta in the mid-1990s as security, energy and strategic priorities came to the fore.

Myanmar's election was strongly criticized by Western governments because of widespread complaints of intimidation and the detention of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

India has made no statement on the election, which Obama condemned on Sunday as neither free nor fair.

Myanmar cancels voting in more minority areas

2010-11-03T00:41:00.000+07:00

METRO News

YANGON, Myanmar - Election authorities in military-ruled Myanmar cancelled voting in Sunday's elections in more areas where restive ethnic minorities are dominant.

The Union Election Commission cancelled balloting in the Nov. 7 elections in 12 more village tracts in six constituencies in Kayah state "as conditions are not conducive to holding a free and fair election," according to an official notice seen Tuesday. Each tract comprises several villages.

The announcement in the official gazette gave no further explanation for the action, but exile Myanmar media have reported recent clashes between ethnic Karenni groups and government troops in Kayah state.

The commission in September announced the cancellation of voting in about 300 village tracts in 33 townships where restive ethnic minorities are dominant. The move is believed to have disenfranchised about 1.5 million people in more than 3,400 villages, though official numbers are not available.

The September announcement was the first sign from the government that the country's first elections in two decades may not go as smoothly as desired, despite the junta's tight control over their organization and rules. Pro-democracy groups, as well as Western nations and human rights organizations, have already criticized the elections as unfair and undemocratic.

The announcement said the elections had been cancelled in several townships in Kachin, Kayah, Kayin, Mon and Shan states, including four townships in the Wa self-administered division.

Ethnic groups in those areas, which are mostly along the eastern and northern borders, disagree with the ruling junta over its insistence that they integrate their semiautonomous security forces into the government's border guard forces.

Many of the groups have sought more autonomy since Myanmar's independence in 1948, and the government maintains uneasy cease-fires with them.

Burmese refugee curbs shut resettlement office

2010-10-25T04:57:00.000+07:00

Journalgazette.net

FORT WAYNE – One of Fort Wayne’s two refugee placement offices will close, a consequence of the federal government’s limitations on the number of refugees sent to the city.

World Relief, a faith-based international humanitarian aid organization, opened an office at Simpson United Methodist Church on South Harrison Street less than two years ago in anticipation of an increased flow of refugees.

The U.S. State Department resettled about 800 Burmese refugees in the Fort Wayne area the year before the office opened. Refugees have been fleeing persecution in Myanmar, as Burma is called by the ruling military government, for years.

The high number being sent here had social services agencies seeking help, and World Relief said it hoped to ease some of the strain on Catholic Charities of Fort Wayne-South Bend, the sole agency tasked with placing refugees in the area.

But the State Department has since severely restricted the number of refugees who can be sent to the Fort Wayne area, and World Relief’s local office has welcomed only about half the number of refugees for which it was approved.

Calls to World Relief’s headquarters in Baltimore and Midwest office in Illinois were not returned Thursday. Dan Kosten, World Relief vice president of U.S. Programs, said in a statement the organization has tried to have the restrictions loosened.

Without more refugees, keeping the office open isn’t viable, he said.

Officials at the non-profit’s headquarters told Jeff Keplar, executive director of the Fort Wayne office, on Oct. 15 that his office would close.

That evening, he went to the city’s airport to welcome the last refugee on behalf of World Relief Fort Wayne – a 75-year-old Burmese woman joining family here.

It’s a trip he’s made more than 100 times, and it was bittersweet to see the gratitude on the family’s faces, Keplar said.

“If you’ve been through what they’ve been through, knowing someone cares makes all the difference,” he said.

Catholic Charities Executive Director Debbie Schmidt said Thursday her organization has worked with World Relief in many ways over the past few months.

“They provided a great service,” she said.

Resettlement agencies, through a public-private agreement with the federal government, welcome refugees at the airport; assist with housing, food and basic needs; and coordinate their access to medical services, English classes, children’s schooling, government benefits and other needs.

For the service, the agencies are given a one-time grant per refugee. For many years, the grant was $900, until early this year when the State Department doubled that.

After World Relief Fort Wayne opened, the State Department limited refugee placement in the city to those who have parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren or siblings already living in the city.

Fort Wayne and Detroit were the only two cities to have such restrictions. In June, at the request of placement agencies, the State Department modified Detroit’s restriction to allow the placement of any refugees in the Detroit metro region who have ties there.

“This change should have the positive effect of strengthening family reunification and lessening secondary migration from other placement sites to the Detroit area,” a statement from the Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration said.

Secondary migration occurs when refugees are resettled in one city and leave for another. That has contributed to a Burmese refugee population in Fort Wayne that has been estimated to be the country’s largest.

Keplar thinks the restriction did not lessen the influx of refugees; instead, it might have contributed to secondary migration of refugees who arrived in the city without the support system of a resettlement agency.

But he said he prefers to focus on the positive effects his agency had in such a short time. Being a bridge between new refugees and churches and people who want to helpwas a rewarding experience for all involved, he said.

“I’m going to miss that,” he said. “I can’t walk away from that.”

aturner@jg.net

Refugees, asylum seekers need mental healthcare too

2010-10-21T23:06:00.001+07:00

Malaysiakini

In conjunction with World Mental Health Day, Health Equity Initiatives (HEI) calls for greater attention to the mental health needs of refugees and asylum seekers in Malaysia.

There are some 15.2 million refugees worldwide and some 88,900 refugees and asylum-seekers registered with UNHCR in Malaysia, as of end June 2010, the majority of who are from Burma. Malaysia has not ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol and does not have a legislative or administrative framework for dealing with refugees.

The World Health Organization recognizes refugees as 'one of the most vulnerable groups of today's world' with special mental health needs. Mental disorders like depression, anxiety and post traumatic stress disorder are high in prevalence among refugees and asylum seekers, because of their forced displacement experiences, including extreme levels of trauma, loss, insecurity, abuse, sexual violence, and torture prior to arriving in Malaysia.

Their mental distress continues even after arrival because of their insecure legal status and inability to engage in paid employment legally. Poor accessibility to health care further compromises the mental health of refugees and asylum seekers. Refugees in Malaysia experience many difficulties in accessing mental health services and health care in general.

Some of the factors that limit accessibility to health care are lack of finance, ongoing security threats of arrest, detention and deportation, lack of recognition of their refugee status and language barriers.

In line with the World Health Organization's position to incorporate the special mental health needs of refugees, and to give due regard for equality and non-discrimination in the development of mental health policy and service provision, Health Equity Initiatives calls on the Malaysian government to provide universal access to mental health care, including for refugees and asylum seekers.

We ask that rates for patient care applicable to Malaysians in state-run health facilities also apply to refugees and asylum seekers because they require treatment and do not have the resources. In addition, it is important that the status of refugees is recognized, and they are allowed to work in order that they can finance their health needs and enjoy access to the determinants of health including food, housing, sanitation, and education for their children.

The writer is director, HEI.

'Happy tears' as sisters meet

2010-10-14T04:50:00.000+07:00

The Nelson Mail

REUNITED: Thluai Par Chun of Nelson, left, meets her sister Dawt Iang Lianching after she arrives at Nelson Airport.

Two sisters were reunited for the first time in five years when 18 new refugees arrived at Nelson Airport yesterday.

Two families of six, a married couple, a father and son, and two orphaned young women from Myanmar's Chin state will start new lives in Nelson.

With her husband and four children, Dawt Iang Lianching joins her older sister Thluai Pai Chun, who has been living here since 2005.

The sisters exchanged tearful hugs and were soon joking with each other.

"She looks different – younger," said Mrs Lianching. "She looks different – older," shot back her older sister.

Speaking through Refugee Services cross-cultural worker Sui-Ting Cinzah, Mrs Lianching said she was happy to be in Nelson.

"I missed my sister, and I was so happy and my tears came down. These are happy tears."

Myanmar, formerly Burma, has spent decades in the grip of a military junta. Mrs Lianching had spent time in an asylum in Malaysia.

Mrs Chun said she had missed her family but was happy with her new life in Nelson. However, she had been so nervous before her sister's arrival that she couldn't sleep the night before.

"She was still in my mind. I can't forget her.

"I like Nelson. All the people are very nice to refugee people and we have lots of support people," she said.

She said the most difficult thing was the language barrier and "culture shock", but she was slowly overcoming them. "When I first got here, I really wanted to talk to other people but I couldn't speak, so I was really isolated. But I feel better now and I'm very happy now."

Refugee Services volunteer Anne Cameron said settling in was a difficult time.

Another intake of refugees is due in December, and Refugee Services needs new furniture for them. Call 5484978 if you can help or would like to be part of the new volunteer intake in February.

Generals' sham elections put safety of Burma's exiles at risk

2010-10-11T07:01:00.000+07:00

National Times

There are those in our society who are blase about their democratic voting rights. Mark Latham provided a classic example when he urged Australians to vote informal in the August 21 elections.

But on the Thai-Burma border live a group of Burmese asylum seekers who know better. People who are prepared to endure - and have endured - jail in the name of democracy.

Right now those people, ex-political prisoners of Burma, are living in terrible fear and uncertainty about what awaits them following their country's first elections in two decades, to be held next month.

Advertisement: Story continues below This week the Thai Foreign Minister, Kasit Piromya, said Thailand was preparing to forcibly repatriate Burmese asylum seekers back to Myanmar - the military junta's name for the country that Australia still calls Burma - after the November 7 elections. The ex-political prisoners - there are more than 100 of them living in camps and illegally in towns in the border areas - know they face almost certain return to jail if they are sent home. And they are terrified.

One of them is Aye Min Soe, a video journalist who was twice jailed by the Burma military, in 1988 and from 1989 to 1992. He fled his country after filming the 2007 ''Saffron Revolution'', in which dozens of peaceful protesters were killed. He now lives illegally with his wife and two sons in the Thai town of Mae Sot. He is forbidden from leaving; he is not allowed to work and has no identity papers.

Despite his history, Aye Min, and others like him, have no hope of their refugee claims being heard. The Thai government is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention and sets its own rules.

Until 2005, Thai government provincial admission boards made decisions on the refugee status of asylum seekers from Burma. This was an essential step for a refugee to be able to apply to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for resettlement. No registration, no resettlement. So when the Thais suddenly stopped registering Burmese refugees in 2005, UNHCR resettlements stopped, too.

When asked recently about the future of the Burmese asylum seekers - despite examples over the past two years of the Thai government, in defiance of international law, forcibly repatriating other at-risk asylum seekers - the UNHCR dismissed any concerns.

"We do not see any evidence that the Thai government plans to forcibly return refugees or asylum seekers to Myanmar," a spokeswoman said.

Piromya's statements suggest a rethink of this position is urgent.

"I am going back to Bangkok and one of the first things I will be doing is to launch a more comprehensive program for the Myanmar people in the camps … to prepare them to return to Myanmar after the elections," Piromya said in New York.

Aye Min says he and his fellow former political prisoners are "ignored and forgotten people". They are seemingly without rights, invisible, a problem that nobody, no government, wants.

Aye Min emailed me a couple of days ago, and his words were full of desperation. "Thai police are everywhere. We are worrying about arrest and repatriation," he wrote.

Since Piromya's announcement, Thai police had begun arresting Burmese migrants in Mae Sot, he said. "We are living very carefully, like a crow."

Aye Min explained, in broken English, what he meant. The crow, a common bird in Burma, has a "very suspicious manner". "Especially, when they see their food, they never eat at once. They check the surrounding with suspicious manner before they eat. In Burmese community, someone who is feeling unsafe and afraid of something, used to say like a crow."

But the international community's eyes, for the moment, are focused on Burma's elections, not on people like Aye Min.

Burma, because of its location, ports, natural resources and relationship with North Korea, is of immense strategic interest to powers such as China and India.

There are some in the West who believe, whether the generals intend it or not, that the new parliamentary structures being put in place might disperse power from the military and lead eventually to a more democratic style of government. Presumably the generals would like the world to think this.

But the elections themselves can hardly be called fair or democratic: 25 per cent of the seats in national and local parliaments have been assigned to the armed forces, which will also hold key ministries. Aung San Suu Kyi, who won the last democratic elections in 1990, has spent most of her life since in jail or under house arrest. She remains there today, barred from running, as are another 2000 political prisoners who are in jail.

This week a spokeswoman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade described the elections as an "opportunity" for Burmese authorities, and noted a few of the parties registered for the elections were not affiliated with the regime.

Nick Clegg, Britain's Deputy Prime Minister, was more critical in an opinion piece at the weekend: "These elections will be little more than a sham to perpetrate military rule."

He warned against the temptation for the international community to overlook the "deep flaws" in the electoral process because it was more convenient "to quietly agree that any election is better than no election".

Whether Burma's elections are a faltering step towards a more democratic future, or a decoy to distract from what is actually the political entrenchment of military rule, this should not divert world attention from what may be a human tragedy about to unfold. Burma's former political prisoners are begging for help. The international community should not ignore the pleas of those who have been fighting their whole adult lives for democracy in Burma.

You're a racist, Jenapala tells Azmin

2010-10-06T02:15:00.000+07:00

FreeMalaysiaToday

PETALING JAYA: PKR deputy presidency hopeful PS Jenapala today called vice-president Azmin Ali a "racist" who is unfit to be elected as the party's deputy president.

"A few years ago, he (Azmin) called N Gopalakrishnan a 'pariah' at a supreme council meeting at the party headquarters here," Jenapala told a press conference here.

He demanded Azmin publicly apologise to all Malaysian Indians for what he said.

"We will never forget what he said,” said Jenapala, a former PKR deputy secretary-general.

He said those present at the supreme council meeting who heard what Azmin said were blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin, PKR president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, former secretary-general Mohd Anuar Mohd Tahir and human rights activist Irene Fernandez.

However, Jenapala said he was not in the room when Azmin made the derogatory remark.

When contacted, Gopalakrishnan refused to comment. Fernandez said she could not remember but doubted that Azmin had uttered such a remark as he was a "credible" leader.

"What he said was something very disgraceful for a leader, especially one that aspires to be deputy president, and possibly a deputy prime minister later," said Jenapala.

On his purported sacking, he said the party has not provided any proof until today.

He also said he has received two nominations from two divisions in Sabah, which qualifies him to contest the deputy presidential post.

"Now that I qualify, what is PKR's stand? The party should do what's right... apologise, withdraw my 'sacking' and send me a consent letter for me to contest. If not, I will go to every member and explain what the party did to me," he said.

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