REFUGEES NO MORE
The ethnic Chin community in Malaysia is losing refugee protection, and for some, it can mean the difference between life and death.
MAUNG fell at least six floors, from his apartment corridor in Kuala Lumpur onto a concrete parking lot. Some say he fell 13 floors, that he’d climbed all the way to the top floor before jumping. He jumped, his housemates insist. It wasn’t an accident.
It all began a few months before. The news spread like wildfire through the community – refugee protection for the ethnic Chin community in Malaysia was coming to an end, and they all had to return to Myanmar. They had heard rumours of their countrymen, who had their UNHCR refugee cards rescinded, being arrested and deported to Myanmar.
Maung didn’t want to go home. He had fled Myanmar eight years ago in search of safety from civil conflict, and a chance at a new life.
But when his own refugee card was due for renewal, he knew he may be deported too.
On the day of his UNHCR card renewal interview, he opted not to go. His friends had told him the police may be waiting outside to arrest those who left without a refugee card. So, he stayed home, but grew increasingly nervous.
“He was afraid to take phone calls and told us not to talk too loudly as the police may hear us,” his housemate said. “He wouldn’t even go downstairs for dinner.”
Maung reportedly told his housemates that he thought he would be arrested, now that his UN card has been “confiscated”. They told him to pray and not to worry so much.
In the early hours on June 29, Maung’s housemates heard him move around restlessly in his room, then a sharp clatter. Later, they’d find his phone broken on the floor. They heard him leave the apartment, but didn’t think much of it.
At dawn, Maung’s body was found by a security guard. Media reports suggested he had been drinking, but his friends say it was fear and desperation that killed him.
When refugees stop being refugees
The definition of a refugee is “someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war or violence.”
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), that definition does not fit the ethnic Chin community anymore.
“We’ve been doing ongoing assessments for the last four years, and it shows a long period of relative peace and stability in the Chin state,” said Richard Towle, UNHCR Representative in Malaysia.
“The conditions that would normally produce refugees no longer exist. People are going about their business of living and practising their religion in a safe and fair way,” he added.
This is the basis for a policy that has come to be known as the “Chin Cessation Policy”. Chin community leaders reported that from 2017, almost all Chin refugees who turned up at the UNHCR office in Kuala Lumpur to renew their refugee cards have been refused, stripping them of the already limited rights, and access to basic services.
They either lost their documentation entirely, or were given “UC letters” – which means their asylum claims are “under consideration”.
Then on June 13, 2018, UNHCR released a statement announcing a process to bring to an end refugee protection for Chin refugees altogether by Dec 31, 2019.
According to the statement, Chins in Malaysia as of Aug 1 will now have two options – accept that refugee protections will come to an end and leave when it does, or apply to renew their refugee status. But if their application is denied, refugee status will be revoked immediately.
Essentially, it is understood that there is very little chance for Chins to stay as refugees or asylum seekers in Malaysia beyond the deadline.
The announcement raised alarm among the Chins. They staged a protest in front of the UNHCR office two weeks later, calling the policy discriminatory and non-consultative. They also contest UNHCR’s assessment of the Chin state’s stability.
UNHCR was unmoved, saying that the policy change is a global one made in Geneva, not specific to Malaysia.
“We should be welcoming, not condemning the changes in a country that allow people to think about going home,” said Towle in an interview a few days after the protest. “The objective is to get people back to their communities, and the cultures that they know and love.”
But for the Chin community, this seemingly reasonable policy change has deep consequences.
A bitter pill
Over the course of eight months, R.AGE documented the statements of over 50 Chin refugees who have lost their refugee status. All of them expressed dissatisfaction, fear, depression,