China: Stop Expelling Refugees | WPN World People News

In late August 2012, the Chinese government forcibly returned at least 4,000 ethnic Kachin refugees to a conflict zone in northern Burma in violation of international law, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs at 6th Sep.

An open-air industrial space in Yunnan occupied by several hundred Kachin refugees, emptied during daylight hours as refugees seek day labor, food, and medicine.

The Chinese government carried out the forced returns without having provided the Kachin refugees a process for determining their claims to refugee status. Instead, the government summarily declared that the Kachin were not refugees, continued to deny them access to the United Nations refugee agency, and asserted without basis that the conflict between the Burmese government and the Kachin Independence Army in Kachin State had “subsided.”

“Rather than honoring international law on refugees, the Chinese government seems to want to rewrite the rules,” said Bill Frelick, Refugee Program director. “As China creates its own refugee status determination process in the coming years, it’s imperative that international standards be upheld, not ignored.”

Human Rights Watch urged the Chinese government to ensure that Kachin refugees are treated in accordance with international law by not being forcibly returned to Burma and by having access to humanitarian assistance. The government should also permit the UN refugee agency to conduct refugee status determinations or institute its own process in accordance with international law.

Source: Human Rights Watch