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Fighting A Losing Battle

By K A Shaji/ New Delhi

10 May, 2007
Countercurrents.org

Nothing exemplifies the vast gap in India 's system of dealing with refugees and repatriates as much as the cruel twist in the fate of this 45-year-old refugee from China's far western province of Xinjiang. Forced to flee his own native land around five years back after earning wrath of Chinese army for being part of an aggressive movement to keep intact the culture and traditions of minority Uighur community, Abdula Dawod has now a near-animal existence in a remote and isolated corner of Nizamuddin in Delhi. Caught in the vortex of extreme penury and ill health, his options are very limited now largely because of the refusal of Indian authorities to sanction an exit visa for him to other developed democracies or to offer privileges of a normal refugee here.

An allowance of Rs 1500 from United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and meager contributions from devotees visiting Nizamuddin mosque are somehow helping Dawod, the Uighur refugee who even denied of the basic right to undertake an occupation here, to keep the wolves out of the door. ``The night comes early to my domicile each day as lights being switched of to save money. It seems the sun has also set early on my life,'' lamented Dawod, who unlike his Biblical namesake fighting a losing battle against a Goliath called China. His struggle for survival is equivalent of the tyrannies of Tamil repatriates from Sri Lanka, who faces the question of identity in the hinterlands of Nilgiris in Tamil Nadu.

The Xinjiang province was actually shot to fame after Hollywood movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was filmed there. Now, Beijing's crackdown on political dissent by Uighur activists like Dawod has dragged the region into a big human rights debate. The peaceful demonstrations expressing opposition to governmental policies like the large scale settling of Han Chinese in the region, the lack of development of Uighur areas and the restriction on religious and cultural expression have been met by violent crackdowns.

At every moment, Dawood expects arrival of police officials to forcibly take him back to China. To his worry, the government of India sought to forcibly repatriate two Iranian refugees some time back. It was only immediate action by some local and international non-governmental organisations that it is stalling his deportation. In Dawood's case, the sensitivities are acute, if not more. Since January 1997, Amnesty International has recorded 210 death sentences and 190 executions in China, mostly of Uighurs convicted of subversive or terrorist activities after ` unfair or summary trials'.

``Dawood's case highlights the vast gap in India's ad hoc system of dealing with refugees,'' observes Ravi Nair, executive director of Asia Pacific Human Rights Network. According to him, India has not signed the UN Convention Relating to Refugees of 1951 or it's Optional Protocol. ``Indian laws do not recognise the category of `refugee' or the fact that there are persons who are compelled to leave their homes and countries due to threats to their lives and liberty. India deals with refugees under a legislation that is meant to apply to foreigners who voluntarily leave their homes in normal circumstances,'' he added.

At the moment, it is the Registration of Foreigners Act, 1939, and the Foreigners Act, 1946 that decide the fate of asylum seekers/ refugees. ``Even to the non-legal eye, the contents of the Foreigners Act, 1946, make for alarming reading. It is a wide-ranging, open-ended piece of legislation, setting down no rules on its own, but giving the central government the power to frame orders and the provisions governing the treatment of foreigners, a system much vulnerable to arbitrary use,'' says Nair.

According to legal experts attached to the human rights network, India's fundamental rights regime does guarantee certain rights for people like Dawood. Articles 21 (right to life), article 14 (right to equality), article 22 (rights of an arrestee or detenu) apply to all persons, and by implication, to refugees. ``But in practice, things go in a different way,'' points out Dawood.

A case in point is Aimati Alimu, Dawood's friend and one of the leaders of Uighur Democratic Party. He ran a video store, circulating among other things, copies of videos containing speeches of UDP leaders. For this, he was arrested by the police seven times and tortured including with electric shocks. When they came for him for the eighth time, Alimu fled, first to Hong Kong, then to Dubai and eventually to India with a three-month visit visa on February 14 last year.

Alimu had applied for refugee status at the office of UNHCR as soon as he reached New Delhi. The UNHCR, in its wisdom, sat on the application for the better part of three months. Though Alimu tried to check with UNHCR several times regarding status of his application, there was no response.

With three months visa period nearing its end, and with no papers from UNHCR to prove his refugee status, Alimu panicked. He went to Ministry of Home Affairs at Jaisalmer house on 9 May last year intending to have his visa extended. His visa was due to expire on May 11. A friend last saw him at Jaislamer house at 2 pm that day. He did not emerge, and the friend went home after midnight and waited for him there.

No news of Alimu was received until the late afternoon of 10 May, when he was allowed to call the friend and inform him about his whereabouts. From Jaisalmer House, Alimu was apparently been taken to Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO), from where he was taken to the Lampur Detention Centre.

Alimu speaks and understands no language apart from Uighur, making it impossible to know what was asked of him at these places. Nor was he allowed to call a friend who speaks a bit of Hindi and who could have helped translate. This raises fundamental questions about how FRRO may have determined that Alimu had to be detained. Even the National Human Rights Commission of India, which was approached in this case, failed to act in time. After human rights organisations stepped up pressure, Alimu was given an exit visa very recently and now he has found asylum in Sweden.

According to Ravi Nair, Alimu's detention violated India's constitutional and legal framework and obligations under international conventions and declarations. The Supreme Court also held that the ``(preventive) detention of a foreign national who is not a resident of the country involves an element of international law and human rights and the appropriate authorities ought not to be seen to have been oblivious of its international obligations in this regard.''

Refugees that are certified as such by UNHCR have a modicum of security, although such status does not prevent the government from expelling them. Those without UNHCR status are at greater risk. It is therefore unimaginable that UNHCR should take more than three months to grant refugee status to Alimu even though it was well aware of the risk that Uighur refugees face.

According to Dawod, he went to the bad books of Chinese military after he resisted the frisking of some Uighur women at an army picket. ``I was taken to the military jail where I was routinely tortured. For next few months, I was in and out of the prison,'' recalled Dawod. Fearing further torture, he escaped to India through Nepal. Being one among the few remaining Uighur refugees in India, Dawod believes New Delhi's newfound friendship with China was the reason behind the denial of his exit visa. Risks are many on a possible deportation to China for Dawood as that country has categorised Uighur movement as a terrorist outfit after September 11 for the sake of further repression. Moreover, China is now piggybacking on the United States' war against terror.

As legal debates goes on, five years of exile is taking its toll on Dawood's health. ``When I telephoned my family last time, I failed to recollect my third daughter's name. Look, I have now written down all my children's name in this scrap book. See, it will hurt them if I forget their names,'' says Dawood.

``The UNHCR is clearly in need of some serious soul-searching, and its record shows that there has not been enough of it. Nevertheless, domestic mechanisms are key, and Alimu's case should serve as an opportunity to take a long hard look at India's treatment of refugees. Arbitrary and ad hoc actions by unsupervised national executive agencies put lives like Alimu's at risk. This is unacceptable and unworthy of a democracy,'' says Ravi Nair.


(This article is part of a media fellowship awarded by New Delhi-based National Foundation for India)

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