Refugee raids show fundamental policy rethink need

A few weeks ago -- on 8 Oct -- Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon announced a crackdown on "overstaying foreigners" in Thailand. Apparently motivated by complaints of foreigners running "suspicious businesses", Gen Prawit ordered security forces to "eliminate alleged transnational criminals". What has followed since has been -- yet another -- dark period for refugee rights in Thailand.

Just a day after the general's announcement, a group of immigration officials stormed into a building in the Charan Sanitwong area, arresting at least 77 refugees from Pakistan, including 43 children. Similar raids continued throughout the week, while officials also started revoking the bail of people recognised as refugees by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, despite many having been released years before.

This came on the back of another raid in Nonthaburi province on Aug 28, when some 180 people, mostly from Cambodia and Vietnam, were arrested. They included more than 50 children, many of whom were later held in separate shelters away from their parents in detention centres.

All in all, some 200 people have been rounded up in the past two months. Far from being the "transnational criminals" the government warned about, these are often people who have fled for their lives to reach safety in Thailand. They are Christians facing persecution and violence in Pakistan, ethnic minorities from Vietnam and Cambodia forced from their homes because of religious beliefs, or Somalis fleeing protracted conflict. They deserve our protection -- not to be treated as criminals.

Today, Thailand hosts some 103,000 refugees, the vast majority of whom live along the border with Myanmar. But Thailand is also home to 6,000 "urban refugees" who live in or around Bangkok. Even though many of these have been recognised as refugees by UNHCR, they are almost completely without legal protection, since Thailand not only lacks a law spelling out refugee rights but has also yet to sign the 1951 Refugee Convention. They exist in legal limbo, eking out a living on the black market due to a lack of other livelihood opportunities. Urban refugees are under constant fear of arrest under the 1979 Immigration Act, meaning many hardly leave their homes but have turned their squalid dwellings into self-imposed prisons.

Those refugees who are detained are mainly kept in Immigration Detention Centres (IDCs) where former detainees have described conditions as "worse than prison". The IDCs are often extremely overcrowded, where adequate food, access to medical care or even enough space to lie down and sleep are serious challenges. Some refugees have been kept in IDCs for several years -- this policy of "indefinite detention" appears specifically designed to dissuade other refugees from trying to reach Thailand.

Indeed, there are already reports that some of those detained over the past two months have chosen to "voluntarily" return to their home countries rather than face indefinite detention. Imposing such choices on refugees amounts to constructive refoulement -- the absolute ban in international law on returning refugees to places where they might face serious human rights violations.

What makes the raids over the past months all the more disappointing is that the Thai government recently made some encouraging commitments to strengthening refugee rights. In 2016, the junta leader Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha committed to establishing a screening mechanism to take over the refugee status determination process from the UNHCR. Despite some progress towards this end by Thai officials, the mechanism remains unimplemented. Authorities have also committed to ending the detention of children, but there are today still some 100 refugee children held in IDCs and 50 held in other government-run detention centres. (Although, in a small positive move, 19 children were reportedly released from IDCs on Oct 19.)

A few weeks ago, I visited the Philippines -- a country that sets an example for Thailand and the region as a whole on its treatment of refugees. One of only three Southeast Asian states to ratify the 1951 Refugee Convention, the Philippines has for many decades accepted waves of people escaping persecution from many parts of the world. These include "White Russians" fleeing the Communist revolution in 1917, Jews escaping persecution during World War II, and Vietnamese "boat people". Many of these communities have successfully integrated into Philippine society, contributing to the country both economically and culturally.

Bangkok should follow Manila's lead in adopting a much more welcoming approach to refugees. Thailand urgently needs to come good on promises to establish a screening mechanism and end child detentions. In the longer term, we need to pass legislation that puts into place genuine legal protection of refugees and ratify the 1951 Convention.

But more fundamentally, we need to stop thinking about refugees as a national security issue, but rather see the humanitarian dimension. Those who have fled for their lives need our care, not to be retraumatised through arrests and detention.