Fears Grow For A Chin Refugee To Be Deported By Malaysian Authorities
Fears for the safety of a Chin refugee currently being held in Malaysia’s Pokok Sena Jail rise after a decision to deport him into Thailand in December 2008 has been announced by Malaysian authorities, his inmate recently released said.
Mr. Thawng Hu, who was arrested and detained in February 2008 by Rela Corps while his wife was pregnant, has reportedly suffered four times from ‘inhumane’ acts of caning as a form of punishment.
“After being registered as a refugee and giving birth to a baby in May, his wife keeps trying to talk to the UNHCR for assistance in helping out her husband. But nothing has been achieved yet until today,” Salai Chan Duh Ceu, one of Chin Refugee Committee members told Chinland Guardian.
Since his arrest earlier this year, his wife, Dar Vang, and her newly born baby have been looked after by Mr. Thang Hu’s friends, who are also refugees in Malaysia. “Now that her husband’s friends and their families are going to the US by the end of this month, there have been worries and concerns as to who will take care of them,” added a volunteer CRC member.
Meanwhile, an accident which claimed a life of another Chin refugee, Mr. Hram Er, 47, was reported last Wednesday. A father of four, three daughters and a son, was around lunchtime found unconscious and bleeding from his head near the lift of a construction site where he worked. As of today, the cause of his death has not been known yet.
There are more than 30,000 Chin refugees, both unregistered and registered with the UN refugee agency in Malaysia. Refugees and asylum seekers are vulnerable to extortion, theft, sexual abuse, arrest, deportation, and many other difficulties, according to a report by Chin Human Rights Organisation.
Rela Corps, a civil volunteer corps formed by the Malaysian government, has been slammed as being “corrupt and responsible” for numerous cases of illegal detentions, unlawful use of force and extortion.
