New law on refugee status proposed

The Kyrgyz parliament will on Monday examine a bill on refugees aimed at finalising legal procedures for obtaining refugee status. "Kyrgyzstan has no law on refugees so far. The only legal document we can refer to is a Temporary Measure dating back to 1996, and totally inadequate for dealing with refugees," the project coordinator of the Bishkek Bureau on Human Rights and Rule of Law, Zulfia Marat, told IRIN on Wednesday. The bill defines the term of refugee, the rights and obligations of refugees and Kyrgyz state organs, and the right to refuse refugee status. It was drafted in cooperation with the UNHCR, which has been calling for a definitive law governing refugees since 1996. "There are three worrying aspects in this bill. The first of these is that refugees cannot automatically register their application," Marat said. The bill provides that refugees must either provide documents or explain why they cannot provide necessary documents in applying for refugee status. Under present circumstances, refugees spend months trying to justify their status before receiving a certificate that their request for refugee status has been registered. During this period of legal limbo, they face harassment by the police. "Our second concern is that in the event of refugee status being refused by the Kyrgyz authorities, the government has no obligation to provide legal help for refugees, who do not know our laws, often don’t speak the language, and have, by definition, extremely limited financial means," said Marat. The Bishkek Bureau on Human Rights and Rule of Law has assisted a number of people who were denied refugee status. Their cases went up to the Supreme Court, but have not yet been resolved. "Finally, our main concern is that the basic attitude towards refugees remains one of distrust. This is reflected in article 12 of the new law, which provides that refugees can be deported if found to represent a threat to national security," Marat told IRIN. Last week, Kyrgyz police launched "Operation Visa" and checked more than 10,000 foreigners living in Kyrgyzstan. During the operation, many refugees in possession of legal status or certificates testifying that their applications for legal status were being processed were arrested and threatened. "Some Afghans spent the night in prisons with their children, even though they have been here for years, and the police know them very well," an Afghan community leader, Salim Naziri, told IRIN. Similar accounts were given by Pakistani, Uyghur and Turkish students and refugees caught in "Operation Visa" and interrogated by the police, who often label refugees as criminals and terrorists. "This image is totally unfair. Our survey indicates that the criminality among refugees is actually lower than the national level of criminality," the head of the Bishkek Migration Management Centre, Talaybek Kydyrov, told IRIN. Asked about the likelihood of the refugees bill being made into law, Marat responded: "I think deputies are concerned with security and finance. They want a drastic filtering of refugees, but they know there are no financial means for that. The Kyrgyz budget does not include funds for refugees. This is why they have postponed the adoption of this law for so long, and I am not very optimistic about their final vote." On Monday, the Kyrgyz foreign minister warned that Kyrgyzstan would be unable to take in more than 10,000 additional refugees. There are currently 11,000 refugees living in the country, originating from Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Chechnya and the Uyghur Autonomous Region of China.