Rights groups slam Malaysia deportation of Lanka refugees

Agencies/Kuala Lumpur

The United Nations refugee agency and Human Rights Watch yesterday decried Malaysia’s deportation of two Sri Lankan refugees and an asylum-seeker accused of being Tamil Tiger separatists.

Malaysian authorities sent the three men back to Sri Lanka on Monday after arresting them on May 15 on suspicion of involvement with the Tamil

Tigers separatist group.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said it regretted the deportation without being given access to the men, who were registered with the agency.

“UNHCR is ... deeply concerned that these deportations took place without the office being given an adequate opportunity to assess these security issues and the refugees’ entitlement to ongoing refugee protection,” UNHCR Malaysia spokeswoman Yante Ismail said.

New York-based Human Rights Watch also urged Sri Lankan authorities to ensure the safety of the three, who are now reportedly in custody there, saying they were at “grave risk” and could face torture.

“Malaysia’s forced return of these refugees to Sri Lanka is no free pass for torture and mistreatment,” Phil Robertson, the rights group’s deputy Asia director, said in a statement.

“Malaysia seemed more interested in burnishing its ties with Sri Lanka than honouring its obligation to protect refugees from possible persecution and torture.”

More than 140,000 refugees and asylum-seekers stay in Malaysia with at least 4,000 from Sri Lanka, according to UNHCR.

Sri Lanka’s 37-year bloody separatist war effectively ended five years ago when troops killed the leader of the Tamil Tiger rebels in a brutal assault, but sympathisers remain.

The Tamil Tigers, who were notorious for their suicide bombings, had fought for a separate homeland for Sri Lankan Tamils who account for just over 10 percent of the island’s population.

Sri Lanka has faced harsh criticism in recent years for its use of torture against individuals the state accuses of links to the now-defunct Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Last year, HRW released a report detailing 75 cases of alleged rape and sexual abuse from 2006 to 2012 in both official and secret detention centres throughout Sri Lanka. Both male and female detainees reported being raped on multiple occasions by members of the army, police and pro-government paramilitary groups.

Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran said it was unjust for Malaysia to forcibly return refugees and asylum seekers.

“Many Tamils leave the country due to fear of the environment for Tamils,” he pointed out.

In the wake of a United States-backed resolution passed in March at the UN Human Rights Council calling for an international investigation into alleged war crimes committed by both the Sri Lankan government and LTTE, the government has been cracking down on activists and alleged LTTE elements.

On March 13, the country’s Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) arrested outspoken activist Balendran Jeyakumari and her 13-year-old daughter Balendran Vibooshika in Kilinochchi. The pair had been campaigning for information about Tamils who disappeared during the country’s civil war. Jeyakumari was detained under the controversial Prevention of Terrorism Act.

Three days later, rights activists Ruki Fernando of the Inform Human Rights Documentation Centre and Oblate Father Praveen Mahesan, director of the Centre for Peace and Reconciliation, were also arrested in Kilinochchi, when they visited to look into Jeyakumari’s case. After a wave of condemnation from foreign governments and rights groups, the pair were released.

On April 11, Sri Lankan soldiers killed three men in a jungle area of northern Mullaittivu district. The defence ministry justified the killings by claiming that the men were involved in a movement attempting to revive the LTTE.

“To my knowledge there is no revival of the LTTE in the north and east,” said Premachandran, who is also a former militant.