Two migrant rights NGOs have urged the government to detail who it deported yesterday and whether any of 1,086 Myanmar nationals will face danger when they arrive in Myanmar.
They have also called on Putrajaya to grant UN refugee agency UNHCR immediate access to ascertain if any of them are asylum seekers.
Amnesty International Malaysia and Asylum Access Malaysia said today that they had yet to decide if they will apply to cite the Immigration Department for contempt of court.
The former’s executive director Katrina Jorene Maliamauv said they were more concerned over the deportees and the remaining detainees.
“With regard to contempt proceedings or anything like that, this requires further scrutiny. But because there are lives potentially at risk right now, our urgent priority is to focus on the implications of the people en route.
“What happens when they arrive? What happens to the people left behind? A reminder that there are other Myanmar nationals in detention centres (as well).
“And that is why UNHCR access is imperative. This can’t be delayed further,” she told an online press conference.
It was previously reported that 1,200 Myanmar nationals would be deported, but the Immigration Department said it sent home 1,086 yesterday. It did not explain why the remaining 114 were not deported.
The deportation went ahead despite the Kuala Lumpur High Court issuing an interim stay to halt the exercise. The stay was extended today to March 9, which is when the court will decide whether to allow the two NGOs’ legal bid to quash the deportation.
More transparency
Immigration director-general Khairul Dzaimee Daud said that none of those deported were ethnic Rohingya or asylum seekers but this has not been corroborated by UNHCR.
In a statement to Malaysiakini, UNHCR spokesperson Yante Ismail said this was because the international agency has been barred from immigration detention centres since August 2019.
“We remain concerned that there may have been refugees and individuals in need of international protection among the 1,086 people who were returned to Myanmar and are currently seeking clarification from authorities on the matter,” she said.
Amnesty's Katrina thus called upon the Immigration Department to shed light on the entire deportation process which she said was "opaque" and “shrouded in secrecy”.
She wanted details on who it had deported. She also wanted to know the department’s grounds for deporting the 1,086 but not the remaining 114.
“The government has to tell us about the identity and the status (of the deportees), how they weighed their positions and why some were deported and some were not,” she added.
Asylum Access executive director Tham Hui Ying told the same press conference that they suspected that “around 18 children”, some as young as three years old, were on the original list of 1,200 prospective deportees.
They also suspected most of these minors were unaccompanied by both parents.
“According to the information that we have, most if not all the children have one or both parents (who are) still in Malaysia,” she said. - Mkini
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