Refugee protection in ASEAN

national failures, regional responsibilities

People's Empowerment Foundation (PEF), November 2010
1/546 Nuan Chan Road
Klongkum, Bungkum
Bangkok 10230, Thailand

tel./fax: (+66) 29466104

e-mail: info@peoplesempowerment.org
web: http://www.peoplesempowerment.org

Acknowledgements

PEF would like to thank all who provided information for this report,
particularly the refugees and asylum seekers who shared their stories.
Special thanks to Ang Chanrith in Cambodia, Abdul Hamid and Abdul Ghani
in Malaysia, and Abdul Kalem, Ven. Son Sinan and Ven. Thach Veasna in
Thailand for their time and dedication in assisting with interviews. We are
also appreciative of Veerawit Tianchainan, Executive Director of the Thai
Committee for Refugees (TCR), and Anoop Sukumaran, Coordinator of the
Asia-Pacific Refugee Rights Network (APRRN), for their valuable analysis
and suggestions.

researched and written by Pei Palmgren

research funded by the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy

cover photo: Rohingya refugees in the Immigration Detention Center,

Bangkok, Thailand / Pei Palmgren
Table of Contents

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 2

I. INTRODUCTION: NATIONAL FAILURES AND REGIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES 3

II. STATELESS ROHINGYA 4

Excluded and Abused in Burma 5

Squalor and insecurity in Bangladesh 5

“Illegal economic migrants” in Thailand 6

Criminalized and vulnerable in Malaysia 8

III. PERSECUTED KHMER KROM 10

Landlessness, poverty, and human rights abuse in Vietnam 10

Statelessness and insecurity in Cambodia 11

Searching for refuge in Thailand 14

IV. LAO HMONG ON THE RUN 15

Hiding in the jungles of Laos 16

Warehoused in Thailand 16

Forced repatriation 18

V. CONCLUSION: TOWARDS REGIONAL SOLUTIONS 19

VI. RECOMMENDATIONS TO ASEAN 20

1
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Countries in Southeast Asia act as origins, transit routes, and destinations for an increasing number of refugees,
asylum-seekers, and other forcibly displaced people from the region and other parts of the world. Fleeing conflict,
persecution, and other dire circumstances in their home countries, they are continually left vulnerable to a variety of
human rights abuses carried out by both state and non-state actors in multiple countries. Sadly, such refugee
problems are being severely neglected in the context of mixed migration. While regulating the inflows of migrants,
governments of popular destination countries lack mechanisms for identifying refugees in need of protection, instead
criminalizing them along with other undocumented migrants. This has led to the persistent suffering and overall
conditions of human insecurity for some of the region’s most vulnerable people.
Considering the failure of individual states to protect the rights of refugees, as well as the cross-border implications of
refugee problems, it is time for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to take a lead in developing more
fair and effective forms of refugee protection at the regional level. So far, ASEAN has come up short in addressing
current refugee problems that require close dialogue and cooperation among several member states and others in the
international community. The Rohingya, Khmer Krom, and Lao Hmong refugee situations reflect the complexity,
diversity, and urgency of such problems. These cases demonstrate several glaring gaps in refugee protection in
multiple ASEAN member states and raise challenges for improved protection at the regional level.
Denied citizenship by Burma’s 1982 Citizenship Law, the Rohingya are a stateless ethnic minority who suffer from
severe oppression and human rights abuse at the hands of the country’s military regime. Fleeing harsh treatment and
conditions, the Rohingya face great dangers while being transported on dilapidated boats from Bangladesh to Thailand
(as well as beyond), risking drowning and starvation along the way. Considered illegal economic migrants in Thailand,
the Rohingya are subject to refused entry, arrest, prolonged detention and deportation. In Malaysia, Rohingyas also
confront a hostile environment characterized by immigration raids and cycles of arrest, detention, and deportation, at
times directly into the hands of human traffickers. Unable to rely on any government to protect their rights, the
Rohingya are an extremely insecure stateless population in need of regional protection.
The small but growing number of Khmer Krom asylum seekers in Thailand is a manifestation of a larger human rights
crisis existing throughout three countries of Southeast Asia. Persecuted for peacefully demanding their rights to
practice religion and own land, monks and land rights activists have fled southern Vietnam to neighboring Cambodia,
where they are promised citizenship as Khmer people. Documents required for citizenship are often difficult to obtain,
however, leaving many Khmer Krom stateless yet unable to apply for asylum with the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Khmer Krom monks who fled persecution in Vietnam are particularly vulnerable
in Cambodia, where they are closely monitored by authorities and treated as dangerous dissidents. Many resort to
living in Thailand, deprived of rights and fearing arrest and deportation while waiting on asylum bids.
Thousands of Lao Hmong live in the jungles of Laos, fearing violence and death at the hands of Lao soldiers who have
been suspicious of the Hmong since their involvement with the CIA and American army during the war in Vietnam.
Thousands fled to Thailand beginning in 2005 and were eventually contained in a makeshift camp, where the
government denied the UNHCR access on grounds that the Hmong were illegal economic migrants. A smaller group of
Hmong refugees, already recognized by the UNHCR, was arrested in Bangkok and detained for 3 years in the Nong
Khai detention center. They were eventually granted visas to be resettled in third countries but instead were forcibly
deported to Laos along with the thousands of Hmong from the camp. Disturbing reports of coercion and other forms
of mistreatment in the Laos resettlement camps have been left unverified due to the highly restricted nature of the
repatriation process.
With hundreds of thousands of refugees, asylum seekers, and other forcibly displaced people in Southeast Asia falling
through the cracks of national legal and administrative mechanisms inadequate to ensure their rights, it is time for
ASEAN to include refugee rights protection on its regional community-building agenda. Alternatives to the
criminalization and detention of refugees, the most vulnerable people in ASEAN, must be found in order to achieve the
stated goals of a “people-oriented” regional community. ASEAN and its newly established human rights commission
can address problems by facilitating multilateral dialogues and actions, including participation of civil society
organizations and direct stakeholders, on the most pressing refugee situations. In particular, a regional agreement
identifying core principles, standards of treatment, and shared responsibility for refugee protection among ASEAN
member states can contribute substantially to solutions to refugee problems.

2
I. INTRODUCTION: NATIONAL FAILURES
AND REGIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES
Several ASEAN countries act as origins, transit routes,
and destinations for an increasing number of refugees,
asylum-seekers, and other forcibly displaced people
migrating throughout Southeast Asia in search of peace
and human security. People from ethnic minority
groups continually flee conflict and persecution in Burma
(Myanmar), thousands of Muslim civilians have been
displaced by fighting in the southern Philippines, and
members of religious minorities have escaped
repression in Vietnam, for example, most seeking refuge
in nearby countries. In addition, a growing number of
refugees displaced by conflicts in such countries as Sri
Lanka, Afghanistan, and Iraq have been arriving in
Southeast Asia to seek asylum or in transit to
destinations beyond the region.
Distinct from other migrants, refugees are completely
deprived of rights regularly associated with citizenship
and nationality and face grave dangers in their countries
of origin. Importantly, refugee movements in Southeast
Asia are occurring within a regional context of mixed
migration, which includes a diverse jumble of not only
refugees but also economic migrants leaving varying
socioeconomic circumstances at home in search of
improved livelihood prospects elsewhere. Such
migrants often traverse borders and settle in new
locations through the same means and routes as asylum
seekers, making it difficult to distinguish between
migrants looking for employment and refugees in urgent
need of protection. Instead, states have lumped
refugees in the same legal category as other
undocumented migrants, effectively criminalizing them
as “illegal” in national immigration frameworks.
Without recognition of the distinct rights of refugees and
asylum seekers, governments and their national
immigration systems have failed to protect refugees in
the region. Of the ten ASEAN member states, only
Cambodia and the Philippines are state parties to the
1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status
of Refugees and its 1967 protocol, while more popular
destination countries lack adequate procedures to
identify and protect refugees. Though ASEAN states are
bound by customary international law and obligated to
uphold the rights stated in the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights (UDHR), including those relating to
refugees, government policies and practices have run
1 Non-refoulement is a principle of customary international law that forbids the expulsion of a refugee into an area where the person might be subjected to
persecution. It is considered binding on all states, regardless of whether or not they have ratified a relevant treaty.
counter to these responsibilities, regularly threatening
the human rights and security of refugees and asylum
seekers.
Rather than protecting refugees, states in Southeast
Asia have been compounding problems by arresting,
detaining, and at times dangerously deporting those in
need of protection, in the latter case violating the
principle of non-refoulement,1 a cornerstone of
international refugee protection. Moreover, the
criminalization of refugees and asylum seekers has left
many vulnerable to a variety of additional human rights
abuses carried out by corrupt officials, exploitative
employers, human traffickers and other state and non-
state actors throughout the region.
Given the failure of individual states to protect the rights
of refugees, it is now crucial for ASEAN to take a lead in
developing more fair and effective forms of refugee
protection at the regional level. As refugee crises are
cross-border in nature, impacting states beyond the
country of origin, involving a variety of actors operating
in and throughout several locations, and constituting
problems that exist between and across multiple
countries, multilateral cooperation at the regional level is
necessary. Furthermore, if ASEAN wishes to fulfill its
stated commitments to building a “people-oriented”
regional community that respects human rights and is
inclusive of all people in Southeast Asia, it must urge
member states to seek alternatives to the criminalization
and detention of refugees, the most marginalized
members of this envisioned community.
This report aims to highlight key issues and concerns
related to refugee protection, or lack thereof, in
Southeast Asia by outlining three refugee case studies –
the Rohingya, Khmer Krom, and Lao Hmong. While not
serving as an exhaustive illustration of all refugee and
forcibly displaced people issues in the region, these
cases illuminate several glaring gaps in refugee
protection in multiple ASEAN countries. The report
considers ASEAN’s recent responses to refugee
problems and urges the bloc to affirm refugee rights and
strengthen protection throughout the region.
Recommendations for developing a regional refugee
protection framework are offered to ASEAN.
Methodology
To learn about the current situation of the three refugee
groups discussed in this report, People’s Empowerment
Foundation (PEF) conducted field visits and interviews
3
Non-protection in an international context

The countries in blue are

non-members to the UN
Convention Relating to
the Status of Refugees,
most existing in South
and Southeast Asia.
Only two ASEAN
countries, Cambodia
and the Philippines, are
state parties to the
convention.

Southeast Asia

Source: UNHCR, October 2008

with Rohingya, Khmer Krom, and Lao Hmong refugees
and asylum seekers in three countries. Rohingya
refugees and asylum seekers were interviewed in
Bangkok, Thailand and Kuala Lumpur and Penang,
Malaysia. Khmer Krom refugees, asylum seekers, and
other migrants were interviewed in Phnom Penh, Kandal,
and Takeo provinces of Cambodia, as well as in
Bangkok. A discussion session with a small group of
Lao Hmong refugees was held in Bangkok. In addition,
offices of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) were consulted in Bangkok, Kuala
Lumpur, and Phnom Penh, as were several
nongovernmental and community-based organizations
involved with refugee assistance and rights monitoring
and protection in the three countries.
A draft of this report was presented during the
“Refugees and Displaced People” workshop at the
ASEAN People’s Forum (APF) in Hanoi, Vietnam on 25
September 2010. The workshop was organized by PEF
in cooperation with the Thai Committee for Refugees
(TCR) and the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network
(APRRN) and attended by civil society actors from
throughout Southeast Asia. Recommendations for better
refugee rights protection in the region were agreed
upon by workshop participants and included in the final
APF statement to ASEAN leaders. These
recommendations, as well as content and analysis in this
report, were finalized through consultations between
PEF, TCR and the coordinator of APPRN for inclusion in
the report.
II. STATELESS ROHINGYA
In early 2009, Rohingya refugees received a rush of
international attention when six boatloads of them were
discovered within a span of 6 weeks in the Andaman
Sea. Reports soon surfaced that officers of the Thai

4
Navy had abused the Rohingya before towing them out
to sea and sending them adrift without food, water, or
functioning engines. It was found that over 1,000
Rohingya had been pulled to sea before being picked up
by the Indonesian Navy, with over 300 believed to have
drowned. 2 From these events, the world was alerted to
the existence of a new “boat people” in Southeast Asia.
The Rohingya refugee crisis, however, has existed for
many years, rooted in Burma and dispersed throughout
Southeast Asia and beyond. A look at the current
problems faced by exiled Rohingya in the region reveals
serious human rights issues involving an array of state
and non-state actors, including but not limited to human
trafficking, prolonged detention, extortion and labor
exploitation, statelessness, and an overall state of
human insecurity.
Excluded and Abused in Burma
The Rohingya are a Muslim ethnic minority group
descended from a mix of Arakanese Buddhists,
Chittagonian Bengalis and Arabic sea traders.3 In
customs, religion and language, they share several
similarities with neighboring Chittagonian Bengalis.4
Numbering nearly 2 million total, an estimated 800,000
Rohingya live in Burma’s Arakan state, while one million
are believed to live in exile in Bangladesh, Thailand,
Malaysia, the Middle East and elsewhere.5
The conditions leading to such a dispersion outside of
Burma have a legal basis in the country’s 1982
Citizenship Law,6 which excludes the Rohingya from the
list of 135 officially recognized ethnic groups in Burma
and thus denies them citizenship. On this basis, the
Burmese military junta regards the Rohingya as foreign
residents, rendering them stateless people with no
rights associated with Burma or any other nation.
As an excluded minority, the Rohingya suffer from severe
and systematic human rights violations carried out by
the ruling military regime. Such abuses, described to us
by Rohingya refugees living in Thailand and Malaysia,
and documented in articles and human rights reports,7
include land confiscation and forced displacement,
religious intolerance, rape and sexual violence, arbitrary
restrictions on marriage, forced labor, stringent
restrictions on movement at local and national levels,
arbitrary taxation on land and crop yields, and other
forms of harassment. In addition, humanitarian
problems in northern Arakan are compounded by
extreme poverty and an absence of development
initiatives.8
Due to the severity and persistence of such persecution,
masses of Rohingya have realized that staying in Burma
is no longer an option. Since mass exoduses in 1978
and 1991/92, hundreds of thousands have continued to
flee Burma, ending up in Bangladesh, Thailand,
Malaysia, and some Middle Eastern countries, with no
option to return home safely. More recently, groups
have turned up in Cambodia and Indonesia, with some
traveling as far as Australia in hopes of acquiring
asylum.
Squalor and insecurity in Bangladesh
Though not occurring in an ASEAN country, the
conditions suffered by Rohingya in Bangladesh
contribute directly to the regional crisis. Adjacent to
northern Arakan state, Bangladesh has received the
most Rohingyas, with approximately 28,000 living in two
officially recognized camps in the Cox’s Bazaar district of
Southern Bangladesh (pending repatriation), another
4,000 in a settlement near Kutupalong, and 9,000 in the
unofficial Leda site.9 As the Bangladeshi government
ceased granting refugee status to Rohingyas in 1993,
they are no longer being registered, and approximately
200,000 live in the country with no official
documentation.
For several reasons, Bangladesh has proven unsafe for

2 “Indonesia’s Poor Welcome Sea Refugees,” New York Times, April 18, 2009, <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/world/asia/19indo.html?
scp=7&sq=rohingya&st=cse>, (accessed August 19, 2010).
3 Mathieson, David Scott, “Plight of the Damned: Burma’s Rohingya.” Global Asia, Volume 4, Number 1, Spring 2009, pg. 86-91.
4 Lewa, Chris, “Asia’s New Boat People,” Forced Migration Review, Issue 30, April 2008, pg. 40-42.
5 Refugees International, Rohingya: Burma’s Forgotten Minority, December 2008.
6 Burma Citizenship Law, October 1982, <www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3ae6b4f71b.html>, (accessed August 2, 2009).
7 See, for example, Irish Centre for Human Rights, Crimes against Humanity in Western Burma: The Situation of the Rohingyas, 2010; Lewa, Chris, “The
Rohingya: Forced Migration and Statelessness,” Forced Migration in the South Asia Region: Displacement, Human Rights and Conflict Resolution, Ed. Mishra,
Omprakash, Jadavpur University Centre for Refugee Studies, 2004.
8 Equal Rights Trust, Trapped in a Cycle of Flight: Stateless Rohingya in Malaysia. January 2010, pg. 5.
9 Refugees International, Rohingya: Burma’s Forgotten Minority, December 2008.

5
Rohingya asylum seekers. Bangladesh has no legal
framework for refugees, regarding them as illegal
economic migrants rather than people in need of
protection. This designation is reflected in government
practice. Border officials have regularly pushed back
Rohingya trying to enter the country, and raids at border
crossing points are also common. More recently,
Bangladesh law enforcement agencies have escalated
their crackdown on unregistered Rohingya refugees,
resulting in the arrest of over 500 Rohingyas within the
first two months of 2010, some of which were jailed on
illegal immigration charges and others pushed back
across the Burmese border.10
Those living in unofficial camps and settlement areas are
subjected to overcrowding, food insecurity, lack of clean
water and poor sanitation, leading to starvation,
malnutrition and a variety of illnesses.11 Unofficial camp
populations are also subject to arbitrary arrest and
detention if they leave. These poor conditions, in
addition to insecure legal status and an increasingly
xenophobic local population, compel many Rohingya to
move beyond Bangladesh in search of a decent life
elsewhere. In recent years, Bangladesh has served as a
transit country for Rohingyas who depart on boats
headed to Thailand and beyond.
“Illegal economic migrants” in Thailand
Though international attention to Rohingya refugees
arriving in Thailand peaked in 2009, as a neighboring
country to Burma, Thailand has been a destination for
Rohingyas for over twenty years. In the past, overland
crossings into Thailand were more common. Several
Rohingya we spoke with in Bangkok walked across the
border from Myawaddy to Mae Sot over ten years ago
and have been living and working in Thailand’s informal
labor sector ever since. More recent arrivals come by
boat and stay temporarily in transit to Malaysia, the
preferred country of destination. As recent reports
have shown, Rohingyas arriving in Thailand find
themselves vulnerable and insecure in the context of the
country’s strict immigration policy.
10 The Arakan Project, Unregistered Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh: Crackdown, forced displacement, and hunger, February 2010.
11 Physicians for Human Rights, Stateless and Starving: Persecuted Rohingya Flee Burma and Starve in Bangladesh, March 2010.
12 Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma (ALTSEAN), Rohingya, Asylum Seekers and Migrants from Burma: A Human Security Priority for ASEAN, February
16, 2009, pgs. 5-7.
13 Interview with two Rohingya refugees in Taman Brown commune, Gelugor district, Penang, Malaysia; July 31, 2010.
14 Thai Immigration Act, 1979, <http://www.immigration.go.th/nov2004/en/doc/Immigration_Act.pdf>, (accessed August 24, 2009).
Perilous
migra-on
by
sea
Before reaching Thailand, many Rohingya face
hazardous conditions on boat journeys from Bangladesh
(sometimes directly from Burma). Most pay traffickers
to take them on crowded boats often exceeding 100
people, while others pool money in large groups to
purchase a boat that they navigate themselves.
Between October 2006 and March 2008, an estimated
9,000 Rohingya traveled on rickety boats destined for
Thailand and Malaysia, with an estimated 7,500 arriving
in southern Thailand since the 2006/2007 sailing
season.12
During the voyage, boat passengers are cramped tightly
against each other, often unable to lie down to sleep.
Rations of food and water regularly run low, resulting in
hunger and starvation on the last legs of the journey.
For example, two refugees we spoke with in Penang,
Malaysia reported that 13 out of 105 people on their
boat died after the engine gave out and they drifted for
4 days without food before being helped by Burmese
fishermen.13 The decrepit condition of many of the
overcrowded boats also poses the great risk sinking in
the ocean.
Deten-on,
deporta-on
and
push‐back
Those fortunate enough to survive the boat journey
arrive to a country that doesn’t recognize refugees but
instead regards them as illegal economic migrants
subject to detention and deportation under the Thai
Immigration Act of 1979.14 Though Thailand has hosted
tens of thousands of refugees, mostly from Burma, over
the last 30 years, the country has no refugee law and is
not party to the UN refugee convention and its protocol.
With the Thai Provincial Admissions Board (PAB)
assuming refugee processing operations for all migrants
coming from Burma since 2005, newly arriving Rohingya
are unable to seek asylum through the UNHCR.
In the context of illegal immigration, Rohingya who reach
the southern coast of Thailand by boat are arrested
upon arrival and put in police lockup for several days
before being transferred to an immigration detention
center (IDC), where they spend months in cramped and
unsanitary quarters before being deported. Several
Rohingya reported experiences of deportation to an
6

Rohingya detained in the IDC in Bangkok / photo: Pei Palmgren
area in Myawaddy, directly across the Thai border, where
trafficking/smuggling agents wait for potential clients.
Those with enough money stay in safe houses near the
border before being smuggled back into Thailand, many
choosing to go further to Malaysia.
More recently, the practice of arrest, detention and
deportation has been succeeded by a strict “push-back”
policy, whereby boats carrying Rohingya refugees are
expelled to sea upon arrival to Thai shores. After the
2009 revelations that the Thai Navy had sent several
boats adrift without food or working engines, the
government vowed to investigate incidents but stayed
committed to their policy of barred entrance, ostensibly
to offset a perceived “pull factor.” Most recently, in
March 2010, authorities pushed back a boat of 93
Rohingya, this time with rations and a working engine.15
The current situation of a group of Rohingya captured
off the coast of southern Thailand in late 2008 exhibits
another troubling response to Rohingya refugees
arriving in Thailand. Before being transferred to the
immigration detention center in Bangkok, 55 of these
boat passengers were detained in Ranong, where they
suffered from respiratory problems, muscle atrophy, and
15 The boat subsequently arrived in Malaysia where passengers were detained before being registered by the UNHCR and eventually released to Rohingya
communities in Kuala Lumpur and Penang with the help of the community-based Rohingya Society in Malaysia (RSM).
16 People’s Empowerment Foundation, Report: Visit to Rohingya Detainees in the Immigration Detention Center, Ranong, August 16, 2009.
17 PEF interview with Rohingya man in Bangkok, August 13, 2010.
other illnesses due to improper ventilation,
lack of exercise, and months of sleep on the
cement floor.16 Two detainees died in
custody. Once in Bangkok, a group of
Bangladeshis was identified and sent back
to their country, one man died, and the rest
still remain, detained indefinitely with no
clear policy or intended government action
in sight.
Ge;ng
by
in
the
informal
labor
sector
Rohingya who manage to enter Thailand
undetected join an older generation of
Rohingya refugees, many who have lived in
the country for over a decade. While their
lives are significantly better compared to
their time in Burma and Bangladesh,
Rohingya in Thailand still face certain levels
of insecurity as illegal migrants. Those
living in Bangkok selling roti, for example,
are subject to police harassment, required
bribes, and the constant prospect of arrest,
detention, and deportation.
A Rohingya roti seller in Bangkok told us that he is
required to pay local police 2,000 baht per month,
bribing 4 departments at 500 each, to ensure that he
will be allowed to stay and earn his living.17 Several
others told of experiences of being arrested, thrown in
the IDC, and then sent to the Mae Sot border where they
were taken to the Burma side and put in jail. They were
able to return by paying a 1,800 baht bribe, split
between Thai immigration and Burmese border officials.
Those without money were reportedly turned over to the
Burmese government, never heard from again.
Not recognized as refugees, Rohingya have had to rely
on Thai migrant labor procedures to gain minimal levels
of security. For years, Rohingya and other
undocumented workers in Thailand were able to apply
for temporary work permits, renewable each year, which
allowed them to stay in the country (though they weren’t
a guaranteed safeguard against deportation without
bribe money). A new nationality verification process,
however, requires proof of identity documents, such as
passports, before applying for a work permit, something
that Rohingya, as stateless people, are unable to obtain.
7
Criminalized and vulnerable in Malaysia
Ranked in 2009 by the US Committee for Refugees and
Immigrants as one of the 10 worst places for refugees
for the second consecutive year,18 Malaysia is “home” to
90,000-170,000 refugees and asylum-seekers.19
Among them, an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 Rohingya
currently live in Malaysia, 20 with approximately 19,000
registered by the UNHCR at the time of writing.
Rohingya we spoke with in Kuala Lumpur and Penang
reported stories of being smuggled across the Thai-
Malaysia border. The journeys usually involved a foot
crossing or cramped van/truck ride in which refugees
are hidden among luggage or other cargo, a nighttime
trek through the jungle, and a van, taxi, or bus ride to
the destination city. Most Rohingya coming to Malaysia
settle in Kuala Lumpur or Penang, while communities
also exist in Johor, Kedah, and Terengganu. The most
popular destination for Rohingya, Malaysia is arguably
the least safe place for refugees and asylum seekers in
Southeast Asia.
Legal
framework
and
UNHCR
opera-ons
Like Thailand, Malaysia has yet to become a state party
to the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of
Refugees and its 1967 Protocol and has no legal or
administrative framework for refugee protection.
Rohingya and other refugees and asylum seekers are
regarded as illegal immigrants, lumped in the same legal
category as other undocumented migrants. All are
subject to prosecution under the Immigration Act of
1959/1963 (amended in 2002),21 which renders
refugees vulnerable to arrest, imprisonment, caning,
detention and deportation.
With no government procedure in place for granting
asylum or registering refugees, such operations are
handled by the UNHCR office in Kuala Lumpur, which has
varying capacity to protect refugees depending on levels
of government cooperation. The UNHCR now reports
that their relationship with the Malaysian government is
the best that it’s ever been, with increased ability to
intervene when refugees are arrested and improved
access to detention camps and centers, where they are
now able to register refugees.
18 United States Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, World Refugee Survey 2009.
19 Amnesty International, Abused and Abandoned: Refugees Denied Rights in Malaysia, June 2010, pg. 3.
20 Equal Rights Trust, Trapped in a Cycle of Flight: Stateless Rohingya in Malaysia. January 2010, pg. 6.
21 Malaysia Immigration Act, 1959-1963, <http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3ae6b54c0.html> (accessed August 12, 2010).
22 Equal Rights Trust, Trapped in a Cycle of Flight: Stateless Rohingya in Malaysia. January 2010, pg. 35.
23 Consultation with UNHCR officers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 26 July 2010.
24 Amnesty International, Abused and Abandoned: Refugees Denied Rights in Malaysia, June 2010, pg, 12.
After years of issuing Rohingyas with temporary
protection letters and then UNHCR identity cards, all
such processes were halted at the end of 2005 after the
Malaysian government announced that it would issue
IMM13 temporary residence permits to the Rohingya.
This scheme was soon suspended, however, due to
allegations of corruption and fraud in the Rohingya
community-led registrations, and the government has
yet to resume such registrations.22 The UNHCR
resumed their registration efforts in 2009 and is
currently active in registering Rohingya refugees, with
over 19,000 registered to date and an estimated
1,000-2,000 yet to be registered.23
Targeted
as
illegal
Unfortunately, recognition of refugee status from the
UNHCR hasn’t translated to sufficient rights protection
for Rohingya and other refugees in Malaysia. All such
migrants are deprived of such basic rights as access to
healthcare and to schools for their children. In addition,
they are unable to work legally and are thus limited to
the unsteady and exploitative informal labor sector. In
February 2010, Secretary General for the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, Datuk Mahmood Bin Adam, announced
plans to issue temporary ID cards for UNHCR-recognized
refugees, stressing that they “cannot work here, but can
do odd jobs.”24 Such cards had yet to be issued at the
time of writing.
Adding to their burdens, Rohingya refugees live in
constant fear of arrest, detention, and possible
deportation. Established in 1972 to maintain peace and
security in the country, the People’s Volunteer Corps
(RELA) acts primarily to conduct raids and arrest of
illegal immigrants. Since 2005, RELA has had expanded
powers to use firearms, raid premises and arrest
refugees and other undocumented migrants without
warrant. RELA often conducts joint operations with
police and the Immigration Department, during which
large numbers of refugees are rounded up and
arrested. In 2006 and 2007, there were several raids
targeted specifically toward Rohingya refugees.
Though RELA is said to have toned down its aggressive
pursuance of Rohingyas, several we spoke with
expressed their persistent fear of immigration raids. In
8
April 2010, a young Rohingya man living in Penang had
to flee the construction site where he works when 30 to
40 RELA officers arrived during lunch-hour looking for
undocumented workers.25 Those with UNHCR cards
were not taken, while 19 lacking documents, including
Rohingya, Indonesian, and Chinese migrant workers,
were arrested and put in detention. As he hasn’t been
registered with the UNHCR, he ran with others and
managed to escape. He still works at the site and lives
in fear of the next raid.
Undocumented migrants rounded up and detained after a RELA immigration raid in
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. / photos: Mien Ly
If arrested, Rohingya and other refugees are detained in
required
one of 13 immigration detention centers or depots,
border.
where they live in overcrowded and grimy conditions,
lacking health care, sufficient food supplies, and clean
drinking water. Fortunately, UNHCR access to such
centers has improved dramatically since 2009, and they
now have the ability to work for release of refugees and
register asylum seekers inside the centers. Recognition
of UNHCR cards by police, immigration officials, and
RELA is also said to be improving as a result of
improved training efforts. There are recent reports,
however, of immigration officers in detention centers
demanding bribes from refugees and asylum seekers
wanting to meet UNHCR officers, limiting the improved
access to those able to pay for it.26
Vulnerable
to
Human
Trafficking
In the recent past, deportation from detention centers
directly into the hands of human traffickers at the Thai-
Malaysia border was a prevalent problem for Rohingya
and other refugees arrested in Malaysia. Collusion
existed between prison guards, immigration authorities
from both Malaysia and Thailand, and human traffickers,
with deals often struck within detention centers where
brokers were given easy access.27
The experience of a 33-year old
Rohingya man living in Kuala Lumpur is
consistent with other deportation
reports. Though in possession of a
UNHCR card, this man and his family were
arrested during a nighttime raid at his
house in July 2007. After a short stay in
an immigration depot, he was detained
for two months in Ajil detention camp and
then deported to the Thai-Malaysia
border, where he was sold to
traffickers.28 He was then held there for
days, unable to pay for his entry back
into Malaysia and threatened to be sold to
a fishing boat, until a friend sent him the
2,000 ringgits to be smuggled back across the
Testimonies in other reports29 reveal similar experiences
of deportation and being forced to pay a trafficking fee
to escape a life of bonded labor on Thai fishing boats.
Many have also reported beatings throughout the
process, by RELA officials, in detention, and by
traffickers. It is believed that “a few thousand” Burmese
migrants, including Rohingya, have been taken to the
border in this manner in recent years.30
Fortunately, this practice has reportedly been phased
out, with the UNHCR reporting that no deportations have
occurred since July 2009. Organizations involved with
refugee victim assistance and rights monitoring also
report that they haven’t been informed of recent
deportations, though they are careful to not be overly

25 PEF interview with Rohingya man in Jalan Perma, Taman Brown, Gelugor, Penang, Malaysia, July 31, 2010.
26 Suara Rakyat Malaysia (SUARAM), Malaysia Human Rights Report 2009: Civil and Political Rights, 2010, pg. 134.
27 Equal Rights Trust, Trapped in a Cycle of Flight: Stateless Rohingya in Malaysia, January 2010, pg. 23.
28 PEF interview with Rohingya man in Taman Mudah, Cheres, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, July 16, 2010.
29 Equal Rights Trust, Trapped in a Cycle of Flight: Stateless Rohingya in Malaysia. January 2010; United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations,
Trafficking and Extortion of Burmese Migrants in Malaysia and Southern Thailand, April 3, 2009; Tenaganita, The Revolving Door: Modern Day Slavery Refugees,
2008.
30 United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Trafficking and Extortion of Burmese Migrants in Malaysia and Southern Thailand, April 3, 2009.

9
optimistic about the permanence of this improvement.
Possible reasons for such improvement include
increased international attention to the problem, for
example the downgrading of Malaysia in the 2009 US
Trafficking in Persons Report31 and an April 2009 report
to the United States Senate Committee on Foreign
Relations, which implicated Malaysian officials in the
trafficking of Burmese refugees.32 Following such
attention, several immigration officials were arrested on
trafficking charges.
While the cycle of back-and-forth deportation and
trafficking of refugees across the Thai-Malaysia border,
aided by corrupt immigration officials, appears to have
ceased, trafficking from Thailand to Malaysia still exists
and pervasive trafficking networks are still active in both
countries as well as in Bangladesh and North Arakan.
Many Rohingya themselves are involved in these
networks, which operate in collusion with law
enforcement officials in different locations and stages of
trafficking.
More recently, in 2009 many refugees and asylum
seekers from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and Burma
(including some Rohingya) began boarding boats in
southern Malaysia headed to Australia via Indonesia, in
hopes of being resettled.33 Thus, while there have been
some improvements in combating trafficking of refugees
to and from Malaysia, there are still networks active in
profiting from the fears and hopes of refugees
desperate for a decent future.
III. PERSECUTED KHMER KROM
Nearly 300 Khmer Krom refugees and asylum-seekers
currently live in Bangkok. A small number have been
recognized as refugees by the UNHCR, with a handful
being granted asylum in 3rd countries. Most, however,
are lying low in a country that regards them as illegal
immigrants. Though the number of recognized Khmer
31 The United States Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report, 10th Edition, June 2009; Malaysia was downgraded to “Tier 3,” indicating that the
government did not fully comply with minimum standards and weren’t making significant efforts to do so. Malaysia was upgraded to “Tier 2 Watch List” in 2010
for making significant efforts to comply with standards.
32 United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Trafficking and Extortion of Burmese Migrants in Malaysia and Southern Thailand, April 3, 2009.
33 Suara Rakyat Malaysia (SUARAM), Malaysia Human Rights Report 2009: Civil and Political Rights, 2010, pg. 135.
34 “Religion, politics and race,” Phnom Penh Post, May 4-17, 2007.
35 Human Rights Watch, On the Margins: Rights Abuses of Ethnic Khmer in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, January 2009, pg. 14.
36 AusAID, Mekong Delta Poverty Analysis, 2004, pg. 21.
Krom refugees is low compared to those of other
displaced groups in the region, they are a manifestation
of a larger human rights crisis involving ranging forms of
persecution, legal uncertainty and statelessness, and
varying levels of human insecurity in three countries of
Southeast Asia.
Landlessness, poverty, and human rights abuse
in Vietnam
The Khmer Krom (“lower Khmer”) are a Khmer ethnic
group from the Mekong Delta, the southernmost region
of Vietnam bordering Cambodia, the Gulf of Thailand,
and the South China Sea. Most speak Khmer as their
primary language and the vast majority practice
Theravada Buddhism, a form that is particularly
marginalized in a country already wary of religious
organization. While the Vietnamese government has for
years pinned the Khmer population at just over one
million, other sources estimate up to 13 million Khmer
Krom people living in the country.34 The largest ethnic
minority group in the Mekong Delta’s 13 provinces, the
Khmer Krom are mainly concentrated in the following:
Soc Trang, Tra Vinh, Kien Giang, An Giang, Bac Lieu, Can
Tho, Vinh Long, and Ca Mau.35
Referred to as Kampuchea Krom (“Lower Cambodia”) by
its Khmer inhabitants as well as by many Cambodians
who regard the area as a lost portion of the ancestral
homeland of Khmer people, the Mekong Delta provinces
were once incorporated as part of the French
protectorate, Cochinchina, before being ceded to
Vietnam in 1949. This colonial remapping is at the root
of the current crisis faced by Khmer Krom inside
Vietnam and elsewhere.
Landlessness and poverty are intertwined problems
suffered by the ethnic Khmer of the Mekong Delta, an
area with the largest number of low-income people and
the 2nd highest level of landlessness in Vietnam.36
Relying heavily on agriculture for their livelihoods, Khmer
Krom people have been devastated by decades of land
reform policies and practices that have effectively
10
redistributed the majority of formerly Khmer Krom- particularly for monks, and leaving the country without
owned land to the Vietnamese government and ethnic prior authorization is prohibited. Freedoms of
Vietnamese farmers.37 Land-grabs by corrupt expression and assembly are also regularly abused, as
government officials persisted in subsequent years, evidenced in restrictions on Khmer language
leading to land rights protests that grew in the 1990s. publications and harsh repression of peaceful
An escalation of such protests occurred in 2007 and demonstrations.
2008 with increasingly
severe repression.38 Violations of civil and
Fearing harsh reprisal political rights were made
from the Vietnamese most clear during the
government, many known police crackdown on
leaders of such protests peaceful monk protests
have fled the country. and land rights
demonstrations that
Despite guarantees of occurred in 2007 and
freedom of belief and 2008, deemed by Human
religion in the Vietnamese Rights Watch as “bare-
constitution,39 persistent knuckled, indefensible
threats to religious and political repression.”40
cultural freedoms of the The monk demonstrations,
Khmer Krom are common. calling for more religious
Vietnamese authorities Five defrocked Khmer Krom monks, eventually given asylum and freedom and Khmer
strictly control local resettled in the Netherlands and Sweden. / photo: Lenny Thach language/culture
practices among Khmer education, resulted in the
Buddhists, making arrest and eventual
intrusive decisions about religious ceremonies, content defrocking (disrobing) of several activist monks, despite
of curriculum, internal elections of chief monks, and pledges by authorities to address the monks’
more recently, disciplinary measures. The confiscation, concerns.41
destruction, and neglect of Khmer Krom pagodas has
also angered religious rights activists, as these Around the same time, growing numbers of protests by
structures serve as centers for the preservation of poor and landless farmers were met with harsh
Khmer religion, culture and identity. Practice of Khmer repression tactics, including the use of dogs and electric
language is under threat as well, with some police batons to disperse crowds.42 As with the monk
reportedly prohibiting Khmer instruction in Pagoda protests, arrest and increasingly stringent surveillance
schools, the only sources of such education. of activist leaders followed, leading to prevalent fears of
government reprisal. These fears have prompted many
Though article 69 of the Vietnamese constitution known activists to flee the country, with several
espouses a commendable list of civil liberties, practices eventually ending up in Thailand as asylum seekers.
in relation to the Khmer Krom (among other ethnic
minorities and religious groups) consistently run counter
to such obligations as well as to those outlined in the
Statelessness and insecurity in Cambodia
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
(ICCPR), to which Vietnam is a state party. Freedom of Fleeing desperate poverty, landlessness, and an overall
movement is restricted at local and national levels, environment of discrimination against ethnic Khmers in

37 Khmer Krom Federation, The Khmer Krom Journey to Self-Determination, 2009, pg. 167.
38 On the Margins: Rights Abuses of Ethnic Khmer in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, Human Rights Watch, January 2009, pg. 47
39 1992 Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (As Amended 25 December 2001), Article 70.
40 “Vietnam: Halt Abuses of Ethnic Khmer in Mekong Delta,” Human Rights Watch statement, January 2009.
41 Human Rights Watch, On the Margins: Rights Abuses of Ethnic Khmer in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, January 2009, pgs. 27-43.
42 Ibid. 44-48.

11
Vietnam, since the early 1980s hundreds of thousands
of Khmer Krom (the majority not asylum seekers) have
made the surreptitious journey out of their villages and
through unofficial border crossings – usually on foot
with the help of locals living along the border – in
search of better lives in neighboring Cambodia, a
country with language and religion common to the
Khmers from Vietnam. Religious and land rights activists
have migrated more recently to seek protection from
Vietnamese government reprisal. Gaining such
protection from the Cambodian government, however,
has proven complicated and disheartening for many.
Unfulfilled
ci-zenship
promises
and
denied
asylum
that they change their birthplace to a Cambodian
location and their surnames to those that don’t reveal
Khmer Krom identity. Every individual we interviewed
who was able to obtain an identification card did so
through this process of denied identity. In one case, an
entire village of 104 people was denied ID cards until
making these changes.46 Though this recent trend
suggests that more people are gaining citizenship and
avoiding statelessness, it is nevertheless problematic

The Cambodian Law on Nationality, adopted in 1996,

states that any person who has one or both parents of
Khmer nationality is afforded rights as a Cambodian
citizen,43 offering a vague definition of citizenship that is
open to interpretation by government officials
responsible for implementation. The Cambodian
government has, however, made repeated statements
affirming full citizenship and corresponding state
protection for Khmer Krom people from Vietnam.44
Unfortunately, government practices have proven
contradictory to their statements, instead taking the
form of discriminatory, inconsistent, and ambiguous
processes of citizenship recognition at commune and
district levels that have rendered many Khmer Krom
stateless.45 Khmer Krom residents we spoke with
reported discrimination by local officials administering
registration campaigns, including intentional neglect of
Khmer Krom households during notifications, deferrals
of Khmer Krom registration to future registration phases
that never occur, and outright denial of registration
opportunities based on Khmer Krom identity. Corruption
among local officials in the form of demanded bribes for
services promised by the government was also
reported. Such actions have effectively restricted the
poorest Khmer Krom individuals and families from the
citizenship registration process.
More recently, Khmer Krom individuals and communities
who have lived in the country for years have been able
to obtain identification cards only under the condition
Stateless Khmer Krom children, Kandal province, Cambodia. /
photo: Pei Palmgren
that Khmer Krom are forced to renounce their identity
and falsify information to obtain proof of citizenship.
Rather than helping those fleeing persecution in
Vietnam, the government’s citizenship promise has only
complicated the process of asylum seeking for Khmer
Krom in Cambodia. Though Cambodia is party to the
1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees
and its 1967 Protocol, the government’s insistence that
ethnic Khmers from Vietnam are automatic Cambodian
citizens precludes their refugee status in Cambodia.
Prior to 2005, Khmer Krom were able to seek asylum in
Cambodia and several successfully gained refugee
status with the UNHCR in Phnom Penh. The asylum
application process ended, however, after the
Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent a letter to the
UNHCR assuring them that the Khmer Krom have full
citizenship status in the country.47

43 Cambodia Law on Nationality, article 4, <http://www.interior.gov.kh/uploads/files/Law_on_Nationality.pdf> (accessed August 10, 2010).

44 Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs letter No. 1419, August 2, 2005; Letter from the deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs to the Minister
of justice, letter No. 7725, November 21, 2006; “His Excellency Deputy Prime Minister Hor Namhong meets with the US Assistant Secretary of State,” Permanent
Mission of the Kingdom of Cambodia to the United Nations Monthly Bulletin, March 2007, <http://www.un.int/cambodia/Bulletin_Files/March07/
Minister_HOR_Namhong_meets_with_US.pdf> (accessed August 10, 2010).
45 See Khmer Kampuchea Krom Human Rights Organization, Report: Problem Assessment/survey and 2007 Project Monitoring, Koh Kong and Sihanoukville,
May 11, 2007; Khmer Kampuchea Krom Human Rights Organization, Report: On Collecting the Issues and Statistics of Khmer Kampuchea Krom in the
Communities of Ka-Orm Samnor Commune, Leuk Dek District, Kandal Province, July 30, 2007.
46 PEF interview with Khmer Krom community leader of Khsom Village, Baneay Dec Commune, Kien Svay District, Kandal Province, Cambodia, July 10, 2010.
47 Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs letter No. 1419, August 2, 2005.

12
Since the 2005 citizenship affirmation, the UNHCR has
not allowed any asylum applications to be submitted by
Khmer Krom who have fled Vietnam, maintaining that, as
a refugee agency, they are unable to offer protection
and/or assistance to people within their country of
citizenship. The government-run refugee agency, which
has recently assumed control of refugee status
determination in the country, will undoubtedly continue
to deny any asylum bids from those that they assert are
Cambodian citizens.
Without the prospect of gaining refugee status, some
asylum seekers have attempted to gain the citizenship
that is promised to them, which proves to be a
frustrating and often futile process. For example, a
group of 24 Khmer Krom asylum seekers who were
deported from Thailand to Poipet, Cambodia, in
December 2009 spent months, with the help of local
NGOs and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for
Human rights (OHCHR), trying to gain identification
cards to live legally in Cambodia. With their legal status
in limbo, they were eventually denied identification cards
on the basis of having no fixed address, yet they were
unable to find jobs and rent homes without first having
the cards.48
Those unable to obtain citizenship documents are living
as stateless people without full rights afforded to
citizens. As such, they face several social and economic
disadvantages, including lack of access to healthcare,
restricted employment opportunities, inability to vote,
denial of birth certificates and education for children,
limits to free travel, and restrictions on owning land.49
The lack of a regularized citizenship registration
process for the Khmer Krom in Cambodia is contributing
a crisis of statelessness that affects both asylum
seekers and other Khmer Krom migrant communities.
Such conditions of statelessness are in turn potential
causes of refugee situations that could grow if left
unaddressed.
48 “Khmer Krom ID denied,” The Phnom Penh Post, February 22, 2010.
49 Khmer Kampuchea Krom Human Rights Organization, 2008 Annual Narrative Report, December 2008; PEF interviews with Khmer Krom people in Takeo and
Kandal provinces, Cambodia, July 10-12, 2010.
50 “50 Monks Stage Protest Near Vietnamese Embassy,” The Cambodia Daily, February 28, 2007.
51 LICADHO, Attacks & Threats Against Human Rights Defenders in Cambodia, 2007, August 2008.
52 Ibid.
53 LICADHO, Attacks & Threats Against Human Rights Defenders in Cambodia, 2007, August 2008; “Khmer Kampuchea Krom Monks Chased and Assaulted by
Police in Phnom Penh,” CCHR-CHRAC-CLEC-LICADHO Media Statement, December 17, 2007.
Repression
and
insecurity
of
Khmer
Krom
ac-vists

Throughout 2007, several incidents occurred that
highlighted the lack of rights and security enjoyed by
politically active Khmer Krom monks in Cambodia, many
of whom fled government reprisal after protest
crackdowns in Vietnam. On February 27, fifty-two such
monks holding a peaceful demonstration in support of
fellow monks in Vietnam were stopped by over 150
Cambodian police wielding shields, tear gas, electric
batons and guns outside of the Vietnamese embassy in
Phnom Penh.50 The monks were held in buses and
threatened with defrocking before being released after
intervention from local human rights workers.51 Later
that night, one of the monks, Eang Sok Thoen, was
found dead in his pagoda with his throat slit in three
places. Within 24 hours the death was labeled a suicide
and the body was buried before an autopsy or any
investigation could be conducted.52 Rights workers
believe that the death was a murder likely related to the
demonstrations.
Subsequent incidents occurred throughout 2007, during
which monks attempting to deliver letters to the
Vietnamese embassy in Phnom Penh protesting the
defrocking, imprisonment, and disappearance of monks
in Vietnam were confronted by heavily armed police and
in one case a group of unidentified civilians and local
monks. Such incidents resulted in clashes, a nighttime
beating of a Khmer Krom monk on his way home, and
the use of electric batons by police who chased and
beat monks as they fled the heavily shielded embassy. 53
Seemingly in response to the earlier demonstrations, on
June 8, Supreme Patriarch, Non Nget, chief of Phnom
Penh monks, issued a directive in conjunction with the
Minister of Cults and Religion, Khun Haing, ordering
monks in the country to stop taking part in such
protests. In addition, monks known to have participated
in the 2007 demonstrations reported being under close
surveillance by Cambodian authorities, with one telling
13
us that he was compelled to go into temporary hiding
due to continual harassment and threats of arrest. 54
Furthermore, it is widely believed among monks and
human rights workers that Vietnamese spies, recognized
as regular visitors to pagodas, are also involved in
monitoring Khmer Krom monk activities within Cambodia.
The above incidents and surveillance measures clearly
indicate a concerted effort on the part of Cambodian
authorities to curb any political activity, however
peaceful, of Khmer Krom monks. Such efforts seem to
be working, as no further demonstrations have occurred
since the end of 2007. Several monks we interviewed
expressed their fear of being politically active and their
lack of confidence in the Cambodian government to
protect them, especially after the death of Eang Sok
Thoen and the arrest, deportation, and sentencing in
Vietnam of Tim Sakhorn,55 a leading activist monk who
had previously been defrocked for allegedly breaching
Buddhist discipline and causing a “split in national and
international unity, especially between the two countries
of Cambodia and Vietnam.”56
The Tim Sakhorn case is especially alarming, as it
highlights the cross-border collaboration that is taking
place between Cambodia and Vietnamese governments
in suppressing Khmer Krom activism, revealed in various
helping to combat what he called “plots and operations
of hostile forces opposing the Vietnamese revolution,”
also accusing Khmer Krom activists of trying to “oppose
and destroy.”58 Such cross-border collaboration has
also been reported in cases involving non-monks, such
as the attempted arrest of a man in Cambodia by
Vietnamese police for distributing Khmer Krom-related
books.59
Considering the strict repression of Khmer Krom political
activity in Cambodia and the ability Vietnamese
authorities have in monitoring and arresting dissidents
in the country, it is understandable that those who
feared reprisal inside Vietnam are also afraid for their
security in Cambodia. Such a fear has compelled an
increasing number of Khmer Krom rights activists to
seek asylum in Thailand.
Searching for refuge in Thailand
Many Khmer Krom activists on the blacklist of the
Vietnamese government have escaped to Thailand due
to insecurity in Cambodia, crossing the border covertly
by foot with the help of locals. There are currently
nearly 300 Khmer Krom refugees living in Bangkok,
regarded as illegal immigrants by the Thai government.
Already rejected or with
diminishing prospects of
asylum, many live in poor and
insecure conditions, distressed
by constant fear of arrest and
deportation.
Seeking
asylum
in
Bangkok


In early 2007, the UNHCR in

Bangkok provided several
Khmer Krom asylum seekers
with certificates that minimized
the threat of deportation, and
Left: Khmer Krom kids in Bangkok, unable to attend school; Right: preparing ingredients for
local food vendors / photos: Ang Chanrith a few were granted refugee
status. As the situation in
internal Vietnamese government reports and memos.57 Vietnam and Cambodia
Recently, Vietnam’s deputy minister of public security, deteriorated in late 2008, increasing numbers began
Tran Dai Quang, lauded Cambodian authorities for arriving, and over 40 Khmer Krom have now been

54 PEF interview with 28-year-old Khmer Krom monk in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, July 13 2010.
55 See Human Rights Watch, On the Margins: Rights Abuses of Ethnic Khmer in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, January 2009, pg. 68; After his initial disappearance,
Sakhorn was sentenced to a year in prison by a court in An Giang province for violating Vietnam’s national unity policy under article 87 of the country’s penal
code. He was subsequently released and allowed to return to Cambodia. He eventually fled to Thailand and gained asylum in Sweden, where he now lives.
56 “Tep Vong Orders Khmer Krom Monk Defrocked,” The Cambodia Daily, July 2, 2007.
57 Human Rights Watch, On the Margins: Rights Abuses of Ethnic Khmer in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, January 2009, pg. 75.
58 “Vietnam applauds Cambodia’s help in combating ‘plots,’ Deutsche Presse Agentur, August 4, 2010.
59 “Khmer Krom man on the run from Vietnamese arrest (inside Cambodia!),” Radio Free Asia, February 22, 2009.

14
recognized as refugees, while over 100 have been
rejected.60 In addition, 6 monks who fled to Bangkok
after their arrest and subsequent release in Vietnam
were eventually granted asylum and resettlement.
Many Khmer Krom, however, have been denied asylum
due to lack of or insufficient documentation proving
serious threats of individual persecution by the
Vietnamese government, such as written arrest warrants
or records of imprisonment, which are difficult to obtain
given the arbitrary nature of their arrests. Others have
had difficulty with applications because of
misconceptions of citizenship recognition in Cambodia.
With the UNHCR understanding that all Khmer Krom are
granted Cambodian citizenship, asylum applicants must
substantiate persecution in both countries to be
recognized as refugees in Thailand. This complicates
the asylum application process, as complex
circumstances of citizenship denial and insecurity in
Cambodia may not yet be fully understood.
Lingering
risks
of
deporta-on
Several of the Khmer Krom we spoke with in Thailand
have asylum seeker certificates that have expired or will
soon expire. Without the prospect of gaining refugee
status, and afraid for their security in both Vietnam and
Cambodia, these former activists have little choice but to
live as illegal immigrants, marginalized and insecure. As
such, they lead inconspicuous lives, avoiding activity
during the day and limiting their travel out of fear of
being arrested and deported.
Such fear has been substantiated by the Thai
government’s strict deportation policy and recent record
of Khmer Krom deportations. On June 13, 2009, for
example, 62 Khmer Krom were arrested and 54 were
eventually deported to Cambodia. Some of the
deportees, many of whom fled Vietnam because of land
disputes with the government, had certificates from the
UNHCR recognizing their asylum applications.
In December 2009, 24 Khmer Krom were deported to
Cambodia, some of whom had re-entered Thailand after
being deported in June. Again, several of them were in
various stages of the asylum application process. After
failing to obtain the documents necessary for the
issuance of Cambodian ID cards, many of these Khmer
Krom asylum seekers have returned to Thailand as
stateless migrants.
Poverty
and
marginaliza-on
Deprived of legitimate legal status, Khmer Krom asylum
seekers rely on informal jobs to support themselves. A
60 Discussion with UNHCR Senior Protection Officer in Bangkok
group we talked to reported earning an average of 100
baht per day doing informal tasks for Thais at the local
market, such as food preparation and cleaning. A
handful of men have found temporary work on
construction sites. Fearing arrest, many stay at home
during the day and go out looking for work at night,
which limits the opportunities available. Their status as
illegal immigrants has also left many vulnerable to labor
exploitation by employers who can easily withhold
payment from “illegal” migrants too afraid to turn to
authorities. A handful of Khmer Krom have been able to
register, with the help of local NGOs, as temporary
migrant workers, which offers them some levels of
security.
Given the lack of stable employment opportunities,
those residing in and around Bangkok live as some of
the poorest and most marginalized people in Thai
society. Many have problems earning enough money to
provide adequate supplies of food for their families and
at times resort to begging from local Buddhist temples.
Securing decent housing is also a challenge. Khmer
Krom and other refugees are restricted to the poorest
areas of Bangkok that have relatively affordable rent.
Without legal status, they must rely on supportive Thai
people to help them rent houses, providing the Thai
friends money to pay rent in their names.
Lack of access to education for children and healthcare
are also of great concern to those we spoke with. Many
requested access to public schooling but were rejected
because the government doesn’t accept children of non-
citizens who were not born in the country. None of the
children who live in the community we visited were
attending school, a heartbreaking reality for the parents,
who become very emotional when talking about the
uncertain future of their children. As non-citizens, the
Khmer Krom have no access to healthcare and cannot
go to hospitals for proper treatment of illnesses, instead
limited to insufficient remedies from the pharmacy. With
little hope of gaining asylum, these conditions are the
norm for Khmer Krom in Thailand who are becoming
increasingly dejected about their limited prospects for
the future.
IV. LAO HMONG ON THE RUN
In late December 2009, the Thai government forcibly
returned nearly 4,500 Lao Hmong who had been living
in a makeshift camp in Petchabun province back to Laos.
15
Another 158 Lao Hmong who had been detained in a
Nong Khai detention center for three years were also
deported, despite the fact that they had been
recognized as refugees and accepted for resettlement
to 3rd countries. Though the Lao government has
assured Thailand and the international community that
the returnees will be resettled without harm, many
Hmong fear for their safety in Laos. Such an act of
refoulement, as well as the conditions suffered by the
refugees while in Thailand, constitutes one of the more
troubling responses to a refugee crisis in the region.
Hiding in the jungles of Laos
The Hmong are a highland tribe residing in southern
China, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. They
began settling as farmers in the northern mountains of
Laos in the late eighteenth century and currently
number 450,000, constituting 8% of the total
population and the third largest ethnic group in the
country.61
Beginning in the early 1960s, many ethnic Hmong
fought against the Communist Pathel Lao forces as part
of the CIA-funded “Secret Army,” formed primarily to
attack communist supply routes running through the
jungles of Laos. After the communist victory in Laos in
1975, the new government sent many Hmong and other
opponents to “re-education” camps, where they were
held without trial in harsh conditions for over a
decade.62 An estimated 10,000 Hmong were killed in
retribution during this time.63 Others fled Laos, mostly
to seek refugee status in Thailand and resettle
elsewhere. Between 1975 and 1996, over 125,000
Hmong refugees were resettled in third countries, most
going to the United States.64
Thousands of Hmong who stayed in Laos retreated to
forest areas out of fear of retribution from the new Lao
government, forming an armed resistance movement
that was quickly thwarted and is nonexistent today, with
the exception of a few armed “bandits.”65 Currently, a
few thousand Hmong, including women, children and
elderly, still live in hiding in jungles areas of Bolikhamxay,
Xieng Khouang, Vietiane, and Luang Phrabang
61 Amnesty International, Hiding in the Jungle: Hmong Under Threat, March 2007, pg. 4.
62 Ibid. 5
63 “The Hmong and the CIA,” Time, December 20, 2009.
64 Amnesty International, Hiding in the Jungle: Hmong Under Threat, March 2007, pg. 5.
65 Ibid. 5.
66 Ibid. 9.
67 “Out of the Jungle,” Al Jazeera, March 13, 2008. < http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2008/03/2008525185848806332.html> (accessed September 1,
2010).
68 Amnesty International, Hiding in the Jungle: Hmong Under Threat, March 1007, pg. 16.
provinces.66 In addition to lacking adequate food,
clothing, housing, and medical care, these scattered
groups are subject to attacks and persecution by the
Lao military, which continually ambushes clusters of
nomadic Hmong.
The few journalists who have accessed the jungle
encampments have reported on desperate groups of
poor and malnourished families living in makeshift
bamboo shacks, many having bullet and shrapnel
wounds suffered while foraging for food.67 Hmong
refugees we talked to in Thailand also described a
severe lack of food and clothing during their time in the
jungle and reported constantly having to relocate out of
fear of being killed by soldiers. Those who have
surrendered have reportedly been harassed, detained
and subjected to various forms of ill treatment by the
government.68 As such, fleeing to Thailand is thought to
be the only hope for many in need of safety.
Warehoused in Thailand
For years, Thailand was the main hosting country for
Hmong who fled Laos. In late 2004, many Hmong from
the jungles began crossing the Mekong River into
Thailand, with large numbers settling in Petchabun
province. Others made their way to Bangkok and other
provinces, where they lived furtively as undocumented
immigrants. Though Thailand used to be known for
helping to resettle the Hmong, more recently the
government has implemented detention and deportation
policies that have endangered many Hmong fearing
persecution in Laos.
Confined
in
Huai
Nam
Khao
camp
After first living in forests on the outskirts of Huai Nam
Khao village, subsisting on food provided by local
residents and working on local farms, five to six
thousand Hmong asylum seekers were eventually forced
to settle on the sides of the town’s main road in
cramped living spaces with little access to food, shelter,
drinking water and healthcare (Medicins Sans Frontieres
soon set up an outpatient clinic). By mid-2007, there
where 7,500 Hmong living in the encampment, and soon
16
after they were relocated to a barbed-wire-enclosed
camp three kilometers from the village center.
The Huai Nam Khao camp was strictly controlled by the
Thai military, which restricted movements of Hmong to
inside the camps. No educational facilities for children
or employment opportunities for adults existed. In
addition, the UNHCR was
prevented from accessing
the Hmong to carry out
refugee status
determinations. The Thai
government, maintaining
that the Hmong were
illegal economic migrants,
refused to recognize them
as asylum seekers and
carried out no refugee
processing of their own.
Inside the camp, Medicins
Sans Frontieres (MSF)
provided humanitarian aid
Lao Hmong kids in Huai Nam Khao camp, Petchabun province,
to the Hmong until April
Thailand. / photo: Ann Peters
2009, when the Thai-
based Catholic Office for
Emergency Relief and Refugees (COERR) was chosen by
the military to take over such operations. During their
time working in the camp, MSF found that the main
health problems suffered by the Hmong were
psychological, mainly anxiety exacerbated by the
constant fear of repatriation.69
Detained
as
illegal
immigrants
in
Nong
Khai
Outside of the camp, hundreds of Hmong settled in
Bangkok and other provinces, living in hiding and
sometimes moving so as to avoid being noticed by local
police. Despite obtaining UNHCR certificates evidencing
refugee status, they still feared deportation in a country
that fails to recognize Hmong as refugees. In 2006,
194 of these Hmong (most from Laos but a few from
Vietnam) were arrested during a 6 am police raid on
their homes. They were sent to the IDC in Bangkok for
21 days before being transferred to the Nong Khai
detention center, where they lived in jail-like conditions
for three years. The handful of Hmong from Vietnam
was immediately sent to that country.
In the Nong Khai detention center, the refugees slept on
the floor in two cells separated by gender. They were
given 2 hours of exercise per day and had a limited
69 Medecins Sans Frontieres, Briefing Paper: The Situation of the Lao Hmong Refuges in Petchabun, Thailand, October 2007.
70 PEF discussion with Hmong refugees in Bangkok, August 23, 2010.
71 Medecins Sans Frontieres, Briefing Paper: The Situation of the Lao Hmong Refuges in Petchabun, Thailand, October 2007.
72 “URGENT ACTION: Refugees Forcibly Returned to Laos,” Amnesty International, January 13, 2010.
amount of food and access to clean water and proper
sanitation facilities.70 In 2007, all 158 (some born in
detention) Hmong refugees obtained visas to be
resettled to 3rd countries after being interviewed by the
UNHCR and embassies of the United States, Australia,
the Netherlands, and Canada. Such resettlement,
however, was denied by the Thai government, which
instead deported the
Hmong in Nong Khai, as
well as those in the Huai
Nam Kao camp, to Laos.
Vic-ms
of
Refoulement
In May 2007, Thailand and
Laos signed the Lao-Thai
Committee on Border
Security agreement, which
allowed Thailand to send
any Hmong asylum-
seekers back upon arrival
in Thailand. In September
2007, the two countries
agreed that the Hmong in
Huai Nam Khao would be
repatriated before the end
of 2008. Though this mass repatriation was halted by
interventions from the UNHCR and several local and
international human rights organizations, over one
hundred Hmong, including several children, were forcibly
returned to Laos throughout 2007.71 Though the Lao
government denied mistreatment of these returnees,
they never allowed independent monitors to investigate
reports that emerged of forced disappearances,
torture, and arbitrary detention upon return.72
On the morning of December 28, 2009, representatives
from 3rd country embassies came to the Nong Khai
detention center to inform the Hmong that they would be
sent back to Laos for 30 days before being resettled in
the countries that accepted them. Later that evening,
the phone signal in the center was cut off and hundreds
of soldiers came to put the Hmong on a bus headed
across the border to Laos. The worst fears of those in
the Huai Nam Khao camp also came true on December
29, when police wielding shields and dressed in riot gear
evicted the Hmong and sent them on their way to Laos.
17
Forced repatriation lack of access to living conditions of Lao Hmong
returnees and the overall uncertainty of their well-being
Though told they would be taken to hotels in Vientiane, raises many concerns regarding Thailand and Laos’
the deported Hmong from the Nong Khai detention treatment of this vulnerable group as well as the
center were instead taken to an army camp and then to broader humanitarian implications of bilateral
a larger camp in Bolican Sai province, where many agreements that neglect the rights of refugees. In this
Hmong from the Huai Nam Khao camp were also taken. case, what has been poorly handled as a bilateral
At this camp, they were strictly guarded by soldiers and immigration issue now requires closer regional and
had to be asleep by 8 pm each night. The government international attention, with a focus on the rights of the
provided only small rations of rice and instant noodles Lao Hmong.
for food.
Those from Nong Khai reported being monitored much
more closely than those from the camp in Petchabun. In
addition, they were coerced into writing letters stating By the numbers: Refugees of ASEAN
that the Lao government was taking good care of them
and that they wanted to stay in Laos. Those who C O U N T RY REFUGEES REFUGEES
subsequently escaped and returned to Thailand AND AND
reported to us that they were threatened and beaten ASYLUM ASYLUM
before they agreed to sign the letters. SEEKERS SEEKERS
RESIDING FROM
After a week in the Bolican Sai camp, the Hmong
returnees were moved to the Phonkham resettlement Burma/ 0 429,252
village in Borikhamxay province, where they live today Myanmar
(with the exception of escapees and the few who have
reportedly been resettled in other villages). In this Brunei 1 0
village, police strictly controlled the returnees’ Darussalam
movements and watched over them 24 hours a day.
After clusters of returnees began escaping the camp, Cambodia 164 17,248
guards reportedly threatened to kill those who Indonesia 2,567 20,223
attempted to do the same. The government has also
kept them in the dark about their situations, especially Lao PDR 0 8,592
regarding the promised resettlement to 3rd countries.
Malaysia 76,404 681
In February and March of 2010, foreign diplomats,
journalists, and UN representatives were allowed to visit Philippines 150 1,797
the resettlement village, though some who’ve since Singapore 7 93
returned to Thailand reported that they were coached
before each visit to report good conditions in the camps Thailand 115,552 903
and their desire to stay in Laos rather than be resettled
in 3rd countries. During the second visit, a meeting was Vietnam 2,357 340,489
abruptly cut short after the Hmong began expressing Source: UNHCR, as of January 2010
their fears to the delegates, and many individually Note: These figures reflect data collected by the UNHCR and
reported that they felt unsafe and uncertain as to what country governments and thus don’t account for refugees and
would happen to them.73 Subsequent visits by asylum seekers who have not been registered.

foreigners have also been orchestrated and restricted.

While we are unable to verify reports of coercion, poor
living conditions, and mistreatment given by the handful
of Lao Hmong who have escaped repatriation camps
and returned to Thailand,74 there has been insufficient
transparency from the Lao government during the
ongoing repatriation process to refute them. Such a

73 “Resettled Hmong Feel Unsafe,” Radio Free Asia, March 28, 2010, <http://www.rfa.org/english/news/laos/resettledhmong-03282010163246.html>, (accessed
September 2, 2010).
74 As of November 17, 2010, those who escaped and came back to Thailand were finally allowed to be resettled to the US and Australia.

18
V. CONCLUSION: TOWARDS REGIONAL
SOLUTIONS
The examples of the Rohingya, Khmer Krom, and Lao
Hmong refugee situations reflect the complexity,
diversity, and urgency of refugee problems that exist in
Southeast Asia. The case of the stateless Rohingya
illustrates a refugee crisis that is unquestionably
regional in scope, born in Burma and continually
spreading throughout multiple countries of Southeast
Asia and beyond. The small but growing number of
vulnerable Khmer Krom asylum seekers in Thailand is
indicative of a larger human rights crisis rooted in
Vietnam and complicated by problems of statelessness
and insecure conditions in Cambodia. The recent forced
return of Lao Hmong refugees back to a country where
they face possible persecution exhibits an action that is
contrary to key principles of international refugee
protection and a frightening example for the region.
So far, ASEAN’s response to these and other refugee
problems has been severely lacking. While ASEAN
identified the Rohingya boat people crisis as a regional
issue in need of regional solutions, it was only informally
addressed at the 14th ASEAN Summit and then referred
to the Bali Process for People Smuggling, Trafficking in
Persons and Related Transnational Crimes, an
intergovernmental forum focused more on crime and
security than protection of refugee rights. ASEAN
officials have remained silent on other refugee
situations, regarding them as internal country issues or
bilateral matters. In addition, while ASEAN is developing
plans for the protection of migrant worker rights,
specific mention of refugees in the Roadmap for an
ASEAN Community, 2009-2015 is limited to a
commitment to “promote cooperation for orderly
repatriation of refugees/displaced persons,”75 indicating
the as yet limited conception of and/or consensus on
fundamental priorities for refugees in the region.
With stated commitments to human rights in the new
ASEAN Charter, including the stipulation to establish a
human rights mechanism,76 ASEAN initiated a regional
human rights system that should have the ability to
address refugee rights in Southeast Asia. The ASEAN
Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights
(AICHR) was inaugurated during the 15th ASEAN Summit
in October 2009 and serves as the main mechanism
tasked to “promote and protect human rights and
75 Roadmap for an ASEAN Community, 2009-2015, B.3.1.
76 ASEAN Charter, Article 14.
77 AICHR Terms of Reference (TOR), Article 1(1).
fundamental freedoms of the peoples of ASEAN.”77
Though still in the nascent phase of its stated
“evolutionary approach” to human rights protection, the
AICHR is the unit of ASEAN potentially able to take a lead
in promoting and protecting refugee rights in the region.
It can begin to do so by explicitly including such rights in
the forthcoming ASEAN Declaration on Human Rights
(ADHR) and by further investigating refugee situations in
the region, possibly as part of the body’s planned
thematic study on migration.
As sustainable solutions to refugee problems are
needed, AICHR should also use its mandate to facilitate
the development of a regional framework for protection
of refugees and asylum seekers. Precedents for such a
framework exist, particularly in the Organization of
African Unity (OAU) Convention governing the Specific
Aspects of Refugee Problem in Africa and the Cartagena
Declaration on Refugees. Both serve as the basis for
refugee policy among state signatories, outlining
essential principles and standards of treatment for
refugees in Africa and Latin America, respectively,
including affirmation of international human rights
standards and the role of the UNHCR and emphasis of
the principle of non-refoulement. These agreements
can serve as examples for ASEAN to agree upon better
ways to protect persecuted populations outside of their
countries of origin.
With hundreds of thousands of refugees, asylum
seekers, and other forcibly displaced people in
Southeast Asia falling through the cracks of national
legal mechanisms inadequate to ensure their rights, it is
time for ASEAN to include refugee rights protection in
their formal agenda. Without such attention, goals for
achieving an integrated “people-oriented” regional
community by 2015 will be severely undermined by the
neglect and mistreatment of some of the region’s most
vulnerable people. ASEAN and its newly established
human rights commission can address problems by
facilitating multilateral dialogues, including participation
of civil society organizations and direct stakeholders,
and action on the most pressing refugee situations. In
particular, a regional agreement that delineates core
principles, standards of treatment, and shared
responsibility for refugee protection among ASEAN
member states can contribute substantially to solutions
to refugee problems.
19
VI. RECOMMENDATIONS TO ASEAN

• Facilitate dialogues, with participation from civil society organizations and direct stakeholders, on addressing the
root causes of refugee problems.
• Develop regional burden sharing mechanisms to address refugee issues, possibly following examples of the
Organization of African Unity (OAU) Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa and
the Cartagena Declaration on Refugees (Latin America).
• Encourage non-signatory ASEAN states to sign, ratify, and implement the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of
Refugees and its 1967 protocol as well as the 1954 Convention on the Status of Stateless persons.
• Urge ASEAN governments to implement national mechanisms to identify and legislation to protect the rights of
refugees.
• Include the rights of refugees and stateless persons under the mandate of the ASEAN Intergovernmental
Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) and explicitly safeguard those rights in the proposed ASEAN Declaration on
Human Rights (ADHR).
• Urge states to respect the principle of non-refoulement (non forcible repatriation) to countries of origin.
• Encourage ASEAN countries to actively seek alternatives to detention.
• Provide refugees with the same rights as citizens in keeping with principles of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights (UDHR).
• Recognize children of refugees born in country of asylum through birth registration and birth certificates.
• Urge countries of asylum to provide access to health, education and livelihoods to all refugees, asylum seekers
and stateless people.

20