In a Christian church on the outskirts of Bangkok, dozens of Vietnamese of the Hmong ethnic group sing in chorus — a rare moment of peace in Thailand, where refugees live in fear of being deported for lack of legal status.
Thailand, which has not signed the UN Refugee Convention, does not distinguish refugees from other migrants, leaving a legal vacuum in which thousands of foreigners live, sometimes in precarious conditions.
The kingdom is set to launch a mechanism on September 22 that could offer legal protection to people for whom it is too dangerous to return to their home countries.
But those interested are wary of the outstretched hand, Bangkok maintaining good relations with the governments which seek them.
“We are all worried and scared because we are living illegally,” said Pastor Sung Seo Hoa, who fled Vietnam’s highlands 12 years ago under pressure from the communist regime.
“We are afraid of being arrested by the police, sent to prison and deported to Vietnam, all hours of the day,” he admits.
He explains that he will not report himself to the authorities.
“There are risks if we show up…I don’t think I’ll apply,” Sung Seo Hoa said.
The new program establishes a status of “protected person” with temporary residence, access to care and education, but not to legal work, leaving the door open to abuse, due to lack of protection from their employer.
The police will start by controlling some 5,000 people residing in the cities.
The immigration services are still working on the details, in particular on the question of detaining the applicants, while their file is examined.
It’s “a step in the right direction,” says Naiyana Thanawattho, of a Thai NGO that provides legal aid to asylum seekers.
But this policy could serve to “expel” rather than “integrate” foreigners, she adds.
“It’s like entrusting the fox with the management of the henhouse”, ironically Phil Robertson, of the NGO Human Rights Watch.
The new system, which could be “conducive to abuse” and extortion, contains security clauses that could allow authorities to refuse a case in the name of difficult to define national defense interests, he develops.
It could be about 50 Uyghurs who fled China, Muslim Rohingyas who left Burma, or North Koreans, according to the official.
Thailand maintains good relations with Beijing and the Burmese junta, which raise fears of its possible collaboration. In 2015, the kingdom returned around a hundred Uyghur refugees to China requested by the authorities.
Cases of Vietnamese and Cambodian political dissidents being returned to their countries in controversial circumstances have also tarnished Bangkok’s image among refugees.
“We see that there is cooperation between repressive governments in the region to eliminate dissidents from the other neighbor, as a kind of exchange,” explains Patrick Phongsathorn, of the human rights NGO Fortify Rights.
The procedure includes a criminal record check, which could reveal “unfounded” charges in the case of political opponents, he said.
Bangkok assures that the country has “a decades-long humanitarian tradition”, according to the Department of International Organizations under the aegis of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which recalls that applicants will be able to appeal a refusal within 90 days.
Until now, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) took care of screening, but its role remains to be redefined in the framework which is about to come into force.
The body indicated that it was working with the Thai government to “establish a fair, effective and transparent protection mechanism, in line with international standards”.
09/08/2023 05:58:59 – Bangkok (AFP) – © 2023 AFP