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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