KL does not recognize migrant asylum appeals
KL does not recognize migrant asylum appeals
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters): Malaysia said yesterday that it
considered 14 Indonesians seeking asylum in the UN refugee
agency's compound in Kuala Lumpur as illegal immigrants who were
to be deported.
"Our position is very clear," Foreign Ministry under-secretary
for Southeast Asia and South Pacific Mohd Arshad told Reuters by
telephone. "We don't recognize the Acehnese as having any grounds
for seeking political asylum."
The 14 Indonesians rammed a lorry through the gate of the UN
High Commissioner for Refugees' (UNHCR) compound on Monday to
avoid being deported to Aceh on Indonesia's Sumatra island, where
a separatist revolt peaked in the early 1990s. They said they
feared persecution if repatriated.
Mohd Arshad said Malaysia would allow the UNHCR time to
examine the cases of the Indonesian immigrants, but that there
was no change in Malaysia's policy of barring access to detention
camps where illegal immigrants are held.
Mohd Arshad spoke after a meeting between Foreign Ministry
Deputy Secretary-General Ghazzali Sheikh Khalid and the head of
the UNHCR's local office, Gottfried Koefner.
Koefner said it could take a week or two to interview the
Indonesians and to assess their claims, and that in the meantime
they would be staying on the UNHCR compound.
Three Indonesian immigrants who broke into the UN refugee
agency compound accused Malaysia yesterday of giving them poison
and Indonesia of killing their comrades.
The immigrants made the allegations in a hand-written note
passed by one of them to Reuters through the chainlink fence
around the UNHCR compound.
"What happened to the Aceh people on the 26th of March 1998?
We in the Lenggeng camp were given poison in our food," said the
one-page note, written in Indonesian on the back of a torn
calendar.
"After we were given the poison, we were beaten because we did
not want to go home," said the note which bore three signatures.
Notes with similar allegations were given to other news
organizations.