Since it is not party to UN Refugee Convention, Thailand considers asylum seekers to be violating its domestic immigration law
By Alisa Tang
BANGKOK, March 16 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Rights activists urged Thailand on Wednesday to pass laws protecting refugees and asylum seekers, as a Thai court began the trial of 92 suspected human traffickers arrested after the bodies of migrants were found in shallow jungle graves.
The call for asylum seekers to have legal protection and access to asylum procedures came in a statement by several human rights groups, which also urged the authorities to halt arbitrary detentions of vulnerable people.
There are an estimated 3.7 million migrants in Thailand, including 130,000 refugees and asylum seekers fleeing violence, conflict and persecution in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
While Thailand has come under fire for its treatment of asylum seekers - sending some back to the home countries they have fled - the government defended its record on Wednesday.
"We respect human rights, and we respect the law. We have always stuck to these two principles," government spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in response to the groups' statement.
"Authorities detain them because they have entered the country illegally," he said, adding that some asylum seekers here may have broken the law back home.
Thailand has hosted thousands of refugees for decades.
More than 100,000 Myanmar refugees live in thatch huts in nine camps along the Thai-Myanmar border, the first influx having arrived in 1984.
In recent years, Syrians fleeing war have joined urban asylum seekers in the capital Bangkok, while Rohingya Muslims escaping apartheid-like conditions in Myanmar have been smuggled by sea and held for ransom in squalid trafficking camps where the graves were found, before being granted passage to Malaysia.
Many rescued Rohingya trafficking victims, including children, are being held in government-run shelters and detention centres.
The rights groups said urban asylum seekers, who wait an average of four years before the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) determines their refugee status, are at risk of arbitrary arrest by Thai authorities.
Thailand last year also handed over to China more than 100 Uighur asylum seekers and Chinese refugees awaiting resettlement in Canada.
The groups pressed Thailand to ratify the 1951 Refugee Convention and "commit to concrete actions" to protect the rights of asylum seekers, refugees, and trafficking survivors during the U.N. review of the country's human rights record in May.
Since it is not party to the convention and lacks protection laws, Thailand considers asylum seekers and refugees to be violating its domestic immigration law and subject to detention and deportation, putting them at further risk of abuse.
"A key to minimizing the abuse, exploitation, and human trafficking of displaced populations in Thailand is recognition and protection," Amy Smith, executive director of Fortify Rights, said in the statement.
(Reporting by Alisa Tang, editing by Tim Pearce. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, corruption and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org to see more stories)
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