Home Ministry upset with UNHCR
BY SA’ODAH ELIAS and ROYCE CHEAHPUTRAJAYA: The Home Ministry has received information that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is granting refugee status to too many illegal immigrants in the country and is upset over it.
Minister Datuk Azmi Khalid said that according to the information received, some of those with the UNHCR letters were not bona fide refugees.
“We are unhappy with this indiscriminate issuance of refugees status by the UNHCR,” he said after attending the Cabinet meeting yesterday.
However, he acknowledged the possibility that many of the letters might not be genuine.
Azmi said that bona fide refugees, as well as those who had applied for refugee status, would not be targeted during the current Ops Tegas against illegal immigrants.
He said another group granted exemption from the current blitz was workers who could prove that they had come from areas in Aceh affected by the December tsunami.
In Petaling Jaya, the UNHCR denied that it had been granting refugee status indiscriminately.
“Only those who qualify are registered and documented by us,” said Volker Turk, the head of the UNHCR office here.
“We are also aware of the possibility of forged documents.”
Turk said the UNHCR had set up a 24-hour operations room since Ops Tegas began to assist authorities in verifying the letters.
Turk said that the UNHCR had also received information that refugees with genuine refugee letters had been taken to immigration depots without the UN body being informed.
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