Focus on regional refugee concerns

Given the crisis in Afghanistan, refugees are becoming a high-profile issue in Central Asia. The five Central Asian states - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan - only began to encounter the issue of refugees 10 years ago after gaining independence from the former Soviet Union. Since then, internal and regional conflicts have propelled tens of thousands of refugees across the region, initiating a debate on the sociopolitical and legal aspects of the problem. Socially, the situation in the region has changed dramatically in the past three years. Whereas in the early 1990s refugees were looked upon as victims and welcomed, this is no longer the case. Now they are taken to be potential drug-dealers, terrorists or religious extremists. "Very often the local press accuses us - human rights activists - of defending criminals when we advocate refugee rights," Roza Akylbekova of the Kazakh International Bureau on Human Rights and Rule of Law told IRIN on 26 October. Central Asian media regularly carry sensational reports on refugees, stressing that they pose a threat to national security. In the eyes of the public, the image of the refugee has become extremely negative. Moreover, the fragility of the geopolitical situation in the region has served to distort even further the already ugly image of the refugee. In this context, some categories of refugees become officially invisible, because the local authorities are reluctant to acknowledge them, as doing so could trigger tension with powerful neighbours. Uyghurs are in a very difficult position: Kazakhstan has agreed with China not to give them refugee status, and they are often accused of being Wahhabites - members of an extremist Islamic sect, according to what Maria Vazshenkova, the coordinator of the Dialogue NGO in Shymkent, southern Kazakhstan, told IRIN. A similar situation obtains in Kyrgyzstan, [For further details see separate report of 2 July: KYRGYZSTAN: IRIN Focus on Uyghur community caught in "political games"]. The negative image of refugees is a key issue, because it affects political decisions at all levels. This applies not only in Central Asia but even in Europe. In Denmark, for example, there has been an upsurge of xenophobia and rejection of Islam ever since 11 September, according to Claus Juul, the legal counsellor of the Danish Refugee Council. However, sociopolitical issues are only part of the problem. In the Central Asian republics - as in most Commonwealth of Independent States countries - there is a gap between the law and its implementation. Despite the fact that all these republics except Uzbekistan have ratified the Geneva Convention on refugees, there is a real legal vacuum in this context - even in Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, which have adopted laws governing refugees. The law adopted by Turkmenistan, in 1997, provides for refugees to apply to a government agency for status as such. However, their problem was that to this day, no such agency had been established, thereby leaving the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) no alternative to performing the role of a government body without enjoying official status, Olga Mamedova, coordinator of the NGO Ashgabat-based City Club Ynam, told IRIN on 27 October. Arising from its long border with Afghanistan, and its experience of a civil war, Tajikistan adopted a law on refugees as early as 1994, under which refugees are provided with temporary housing, food, medical care and interpreters. But despite the existence of this law, the legal status of refugees is coming under pressure in this country too. The Tajik government is considering a bill, which, if passed into law, would restrict the accommodation of refugees to very restricted locations in remote areas. Debate of this bill had been postponed, but if it became a law it would effectively prohibit refugees from working or residing in major cities and would expose them to the danger of falling victim to human traffickers, Mavjuda Rakhmanova, director of the Dushanbe-based Refugee Children and Vulnerable Citizens Group, told IRIN. Uzbekistan officially ignores the existence of refugees on its territory. However, according to experts, there are about 6,000 Afghan refugees in Uzbekistan. "UNHCR is the only agency dealing with refugees, but it is not very popular with them," said Natalia Kulakova, the coordinator of the Tashkent Public Education Centre. Sharing an environment in which refugees are stigmatised and face legal loopholes, the Central Asian republics need to coordinate their policies and programmes on refugees. Experts have been calling for cooperation in this field for a long time, but governments lack the political will to bring about regional collaboration. "As a result of this absence of cooperation, groups of refugees wander from one country to the next, as we have no regional or even bilateral deportation and readmission procedures," said Cholpon Dzhakupova, the deputy director of the Bishkek Migration Management Centre. This is particularly true of Afghan, Tajik and Uyghur refugees, who cross borders in the hope of achieving a better legal or economic status in a third country. The corruption of police, border guards and customs structures, combined with to a lack of training and often basic knowledge of refugee rights, are the main obstacles to standardising procedures at a regional level. "The real problem is corruption, which feeds human trafficking. This should be our primary focus," said Dzhakupova.