Controller General of Immigration and Emigration Chulananda Perera said his department had no plans to stop the deportations, insisting that the Sri Lankan Government was acting in accordance with the country’s laws.
Source/Credit: The Nation | Sri Lanka
By Sandun Jayawardana | September 14, 2014
The Department of Immigration and Emigration yesterday (September 13) hit back at the latest criticism leveled by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) regarding the country’s ongoing deportation of asylum-seekers and refugees.
Controller General of Immigration and Emigration Chulananda Perera said his department had no plans to stop the deportations, insisting that the Sri Lankan Government was acting in accordance with the country’s laws.
Perera was responding to the latest statement made by the UNHCR on Friday (September 12) expressing ‘grave concern’ about the resumption of arrests, detention and deportation of asylum-seekers and refugees in Sri Lanka. The UN refugee agency once again called on the government of Sri Lanka to ‘refrain from such actions and abide by its obligations under international law’.
The agency stated it has learned that between September 3 and 11, a total of 62 Pakistani and three Afghan asylum-seekers were arrested and detained; 40 were subsequently deported. Since early June, the authorities have arrested and detained 328 refugees and asylum-seekers, and deported 183 of them to Pakistan and Afghanistan, according to UNHCR.
“We believe there are still 102 people of concern to the UNHCR in detention, including 38 Pakistanis and 64 Afghans,” the UNHCR spokesperson Babar Baloch said in Geneva, according to UN News Center.
Baloch said that when the UNHCR met with the government earlier this month, assurances were given for the immediate release of all asylum-seekers and refugees arrested and detained since June.
“While we appreciate the Government’s speedy action to release 71 Pakistani and 2 Iranian refugees and asylum-seekers in early September, not everyone in detention has been released and we are dismayed that the arrests, detention and deportations have resumed,” Baloch had said.
Perera vehemently denied that the government had given any assurances. “However, we did agree to move those held at the Boosa detention camp to a facility run by our department in Negombo. Beyond that, we have made it clear the deportations would continue”.
Meanwhile, six human rights campaigners on Friday petitioned the Supreme Court challenging the deportations. The petition will be taken up on September 29.
Attorney-at-Law Lakshan Dias said human rights campaigners, along with religious and civil society organizations, had met with the UNHCR representatives last week, where it was disclosed that the government had proposed to set up one single facility to house all asylum-seekers until their refugee status is determined.
“The government had proposed that the UNHCR fund the entire facility. However, UNHCR had said they could not do so citing budgetary constraints. We proposed a compromise to UNHCR where civil society organizations, the Ahmadiyya Mosque, and churches would help with the funding. As such, it will be a combined effort on the part of the government, the UNHCR and these religious and civil society organizations”.
Dias said the compromise, which is to be presented to the government, represents a ‘win-win situation’ for all parties. “While I personally don’t like the idea of holding people in detention, particularly children, it’s still a much better alternative than deportation,” he noted.
Read original post here: No respite in deportation of asylum-seekers
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