NEWS Repost - CHIN HUNGER STRIKERS

[TheTruth@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Subject: NEWS Repost - CHIN HUNGER STRIKERS SENT TO JAIL IN NEW DELHI 

CHIN HUNGER STRIKERS SENT TO JAIL IN NEW DELHI 
                     MIZZIMA News Group: March 26, 1999,(edited) 
            UN High Commissioner for Refugees summoned police to arrest
claimants 

NEW DELHI -- Nine Burmese refugees who went on a hunger strike on March
22nd in front of UNHCR
offices here were sent to Tihar Central Jail today. The strikers were
arrested by police a second time
yesterday afternoon when they returned to make their silent protest
against the rejection of their claim
to refugee status. 

They appeared in court today and were represented by Rajesh Talwar, the
Legal Counsel of the
South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre (SAHRDC). The refugees were
formally charged
under Section 14 of the Foreigners' Act of 1946 with illegal entry into
India and were sentenced to be
held in legal custody. Under the act, they could be given a maximum 3
months in jail after which they
would face deportation back to Burma. 

The youthful refugees, between the ages of 16 and 27, mostly from Chin
State in Burma, crossed the
Indo-Burma border areas about a year ago to take refugee in India due to
repressive measures of the
military regime in Burma. They applied to the UNHCR office in New Delhi
for refugee status but their
cases were rejected. 

The strikers were taken away by police on Wednesday from a roadside
platform where they were lying
in front of the UNHCR office but were released later the same evening.
They returned to their post the
next morning. 

In a letter to the Chief of Mission of the UNHCR, they said they
preferred to die in front of UNHCR
office in Delhi rather than go back to Burma where they would be
imprisoned or killed by the military
regime. 

In reply, the UNHCR warned the refugees to call off their strike saying
that police intervention would be
called for, should they refuse to do so. It had examined their cases,
the UNHCR said, and found no
grounds to recognize them as refugees. 

Meanwhile, in a letter directed to the UNHCR, the General Secretary of
India's Samata Party, Ms. Jaya
Jaitly, asked the UN refugee organization to review the cases of the
nine. She said Samata had been
providing sympathy and support on a purely humanitarian basis to
refugees who had come to India to
escape jail or death in Burma. 

Ravi Nair, Executive Director of the SAHRDC, said that his organization
would challenge the case of
the arrested Burmese refugees as well as the 1946 Foreigners' Act in
Supreme Court of India. He
plans to organize an international campaign to question the UNHCR's
unwillingness to address the
problems of the Burmese asylum seekers in India.