
Posts Tagged ‘refugee status determination’
Trump Administration would like to delegate security checks to dictators?
February 11, 2017
Thailand returns recognized refugees to China (and falsely claims they did not know about their status)
December 8, 2015Anneliese Mcauliffe in Al Jazeera on 6 December 2015 reported that two Chinese human rights defenders recognised as UN refugees were forcibly deported from Thailand to China last month and have appeared on Chinese state-run television and confessed to human-trafficking offenses. CCTV reported that Jiang Yefei was arrested for “assisting others to illegally cross the national border”, and Dong Guangping was charged with using a trafficking network to flee China while awaiting trial on sedition charges. It was the first time the two men were seen since being taken from a detention centre in the Thai capital Bangkok in November and deported to China.
MEA laureate Kasha urges UK Home Office not to deport Ugandan lesbian
December 12, 2014Under the title “FAMED UGANDAN ACTIVIST URGES UK HOME OFFICE NOT TO DEPORT LESBIAN” Melanie Nathan reports in her post of 11 December 2014 on O-blog-dee-o-blog-da that Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera, the MEA laureate of 2011 has intervened strongly with the UK not to force Judith Twikiriz back to Uganda. “The UK has been very supportive of the Uganda Gay rights movement and it will be an embarrassment that your office doesn’t live up to its expectations in protecting those that need the protection most from persecution” Kasha writes in her letter. She would be sent back to the country where she already experienced torture and where she now faces likely persecution. The letter contains detailed arguments against deportation.
via Famed Ugandan Activist Urges UK Home Office Not to Deport Lesbian | O-blog-dee-o-blog-da.
Victims become human rights defenders against Female Genital Mutilation
March 29, 2014On 7 March 2014 UNHCR published a series of 6 videos on female genital mutilation (FGM), Too Much Pain, with stories of refugee women who have undergone FGM and have become human rights defenders engaged to end this practice. These women explain their experiences of flight, asylum and integration in the EU. These video clips deserve much wider recognition.
In Part 1, refugee women talk about why they had to flee because of their commitment to end the practice. The other videos explain that FGM is recognized internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women. The practice also violates a person’s rights to health and physical integrity; the right to be free from torture and other rights. FGM is harmful not cultural; it has life-long consequences and can be a ground for asylum. (See all videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtPw-Y91GlmWvO9wxMUW-Ey3eMY2vwWYZ )
This video complements the UNHCR publication Too Much Pain: Female Genital Mutilation & Asylum in the European Union – A Statistical Overview, and updated in March 2014 (see here: http://goo.gl/lDnCRJ).
New REFWORLD goes live this week: an underestimated tool for Human Rights Defenders and researchers
April 16, 2013UNHCR’s Refworld 2013 goes live this week at http://www.refworld.org. The website has undergone significant changes based on a feedback received from internal and external users over the years.
Refworld started almost 20 years ago as an ever-expanding series of DVD’s containing the different databases of documentation centre of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. With the wider availability of broadband it switched in 2007 to internet only. It was already then considered an advanced protection information resource which aims to facilitate evidence-based and effective decision-making in refugee status determination procedures. Now it functions more broadly as a key tool for evidence-based advocacy relating to resettlement, statelessness, internal displacement, as well as specific protection concerns. The database, updated on a daily basis, now contains more than 167,000 documents relating to countries of origin or asylum, case law, legislation and policy. Especially the ‘country of origin’ information is relevant to human rights defenders as it is in fact a selection of human rights violations documentation. Also the legal information section is a unique collection of worldwide documentation concerning refugee law and statelessness.
Refworld 2013 features a number of improvements, such as: Read the rest of this entry »