GIVE ME MORE DETAILS ABOUT THE 92 REFUGEES AND ASYLUM SEEKERS IMPRISONED IN IDC

HELP THEM!

Pose for the Human Rights of these detainees

Please relay

Our Human Message to

Thai Authorities

Countersign

Their Letter to Embassies

Write to them on our Blog “News For Detainees”

Draw and

Send Them

Some Sun

Be Their Ambassador to inform and mobilize your favorite medias, NGOs, artists, politicians…

TO MAKE IT SIMPLE…

The steps of the resettlement process these detainees are going through are:

- they left their country where they felt their life was endangered

- they reached Bangkok UNHCR’s office to ask political asylum

- their situation has to be studied by UNHCR to know if they have to be recognized as refugees.

The normal process takes several months, the applicants have to constitute a file, to explain why they left their country and to bring evidence of the threats they were facing before their departure.

One or several interviews will be made by UNHCR officers, to determine if the applicants are telling the truth and must be given the refugee’s status.

During all this process, the applicants will be called “asylum seekers”.

- the people whose situation, according to UNHCR’s assessment, can not go back to their country, will be given the status of refugees.

- the next step UNHCR has to undertake is to ask some third countries to resettle these refugees, as they can not settle in Thailand, where they have no legal status (Thailand did not sign the Geneva Convention relating to refugees’ rights).

Resettlement means that a country accepts to welcome a family or individual and to offer them a place to live, while helping them to integrate in this new country, as the life in their country of origin is not possible anymore, at least at present time.

The decision process to accept a refugee’s resettlement usually takes from 6 to 12 months depending on the country, except if these is an emergency for resettlement (as it is the case when there is undue detention).

In that case, UNHCR can ask to an embassy an “urgent priority resettlement”; in that accelerated process, the Embassy has 2 months to study the case and give an answer to the resettlement request

- if the resettlement has been accepted, the refugee will be taken in charge by the International Office of Migrations for organization of his departure

- if the request is rejected for any reason, the refugee will be proposed for resettlement to a different country.

LONG WAY TO GO, ISN’T IT…?

Give Me More Details…

I CELEBRATED MY THIRD BIRTHDAY IN JAIL

My name is Nanthini,

I am 3 years old,

I am a Tamil from Sri Lanka,

I have lived with my mother and my elder brother Raja,

in jail in Bangkok for 3 months,

My father is also here, but I never see him,

My mother tells me he stays in another cell.

To live in a war affected country is never a choice, but has lifelong consequences.

Children pay a heavy tribute in the internal or international conflicts that shake the world.

What kind of adult can you become when you have already lived in jail at 3 years of age?

Nanthini’s story is both extraordinary and common.

It is the story of a small girl whose parents, because they were facing a life threatening situation in their country, made the difficult choice to exile themselves and ask for international protection from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Nanthini’s family left Sri Lanka because of the renewed increase in fighting and insecurity as did the other families who are now detained by the Thai authorities in Bangkok. Their village was attacked, several of Raja’s schoolmates died from bombings. Other families went to camps packed with refugees where the humanitarian aid that is essential for their survival very occasionally manages to reach them.

Raja’s parents know exactly what it means to live in a war affected country.

At present they are in their thirties, the war exploded when they were young children, and has only calmed down 20 years later.

Bombings,

death of relatives,

displacement in overcrowded camps,

disruption of basic health and school services, shortage of food…

have been their everyday lot for many years.

The resumption of hostilities affecting Sri Lanka over the last year and a half has left with no choice but to find another way to secure a better childhood for their own children that is no longer possible in Sri Lanka.

They exiled themselves at the end of 2006 and arrived in Thailand.

They immediately asked the refugee status to UNHCR office in Bangkok and obtained it after a few months.

Unhappily the following is quite common:

Raja remembers:

“We celebrated that day

First we went to the temple, then, Mummy cooked a big rice and curry dish and made some sweets, and we invited all the neighbors.

Nanthini and I didn’t really understand what was going on, so Daddy explained to us that those who were taking care of people like us had now decided that we were refugees, and that very soon they would help us to go to a country where we would have the right to walk in the street and to go back to school.

After hearing this, my little sister and I, were also very happy that day”

One morning, Raja and Nanthini woke up because of shouting and cries:

“Everybody was running around, there were policemen everywhere.

We could not understand what they were saying, but they were shouting very loud at Mummy because she wanted to take a few clothes. They put us in a caged truck, and they brought us here.

All the people in the street were looking at us, so we hid our faces in Mummy’s skirt. We knew we had done nothing wrong and were sure that it was a mistake that we were being taken like that. We thought they would bring us back home later, and didn’t want the people from this area to think that we were bad people.”

Raja and Nanthini and another 3 children were arrested in March 2007 and imprisoned in IDC (Immigration Detention Centre), Bangkok.

In their cell, they met Sana, a 6 year old,

who was arrested with her parents

in January 2007 in similar conditions.

On the 2nd of July, another group of families

including 18 children were raided and imprisoned by the Thai immigration police.

Because Thailand

did not sign the

Geneva Convention relating

to refugees rights,

all these families and people

are considered as illegal immigrants and can be kept

for an undetermined duration

of detention or deported.

WHAT CAN WE DO…?

Our mobilization first consisted in “mobilizing” UNHCR to consider the situation of these detainees as an emergency. An online petition, gathering signatures from people living in 35 countries, helped us to enter in contact with UNHCR Geneva and to call them out about the plight of these refugees and asylum seekers. Through this mobilization launched in July 2007, we obtained from UNHCR that they request

urgent priority resettlement

to various third countries that could resettle the detainees who were previously granted the refugee status.

Since UNHCR asked to some third countries an urgent priority resettlement, we have been informing the relevant embassies about the inhuman detention conditions of these detainees, by relaying towards them the letter “Voices of Detained Refugees” thanks to the countersignatures gathered online or in the streets of various cities.

At present time, no embassy or UNHCR staff is permitted by the authorities of the Immigration Detention centre (IDC) to enter in contact with the detainees. This situation has been blocked since April 2007, despite all diplomatic negotiations.

Because of that,

the 41 asylum seekers have no hope to see their situation evolve, as UNHCR can not recognize them as refugees without interviewing them.

Because of that,

some refugees’ resettlement requests were recently rejected or are pending since many months as it is difficult for Embassies to take a resettlement decision without being able to enter in contact with the refugees.

As a consequence, our current action is to send a human message to Thai authorities to ask them to let UNHCR and Embassies access the refugees and asylum seekers detained in IDC

êêê GOOD NEWS êêê

Nanthini, Raja AND Sana’s families recently left IDC for Norway AFTER THEIR RESETTLEMENT WAS ACCEPTED.

BUT there is still a long way to go for most of the 92 people still imprisoned:

Among the 92 detainees,

è 83 fled from Sri Lanka, 9 from Nepal.

è 51 people have been recognized by UNHCR as refugees

è 41 are still asylum seekers

è 8 families are included, with 20 children including 12 aged less than 10 and 9 aged less than 6

Among them,

Refugees received the news that one country had accepted to resettle them and will hopefully soon leave the jail.

Refugees are hoping for a positive answer to their resettlement request from one third country

Refugees have been rejected by one country and not yet been proposed for resettlement to another country

Refugees have not yet been proposed to any country

Are asylum seekers, their status determination is blocked as UNHCR has no access to the detention centre

That means that for these above 79 people (if we don’t consider the 13 people already accepted by a third country), the fact that UNHCR and Embassies have no access to IDC is a major problem and can cause them to stay in jail months and years…

HELP THESE FAMILIES BY RELAYING OUR HUMAN MESSAGE TOWARDS THAI AUTHORITIES