The Phnom Penh Post
COMMENT
Christophe Peschoux
Deporting Uighur potential refugees sets a terrible precedent
AS representative of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, but also as a human being who is profoundly attached to the principle of international protection of persons seeking asylum from persecution, I am dismayed by the deportation from Cambodia of Uighur asylum seekers to China. Anyone can become a refugee in today’s world, and may have to seek international protection under international refugee law.
Cambodia has ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention and had the legal obligation to examine the asylum claims of these 20 individuals and to fairly determine their status. Up to this weekend, Cambodia was a safe asylum country for persecuted people and was applying a generous, humane policy. Although the authorities initially gave strong assurances that they considered these individuals asylum seekers and that they would complete the refugee status determination with regard to the 20, this was suddenly overturned over the weekend, when, obviously under pressure, the asylum seekers were for the first time labelled illegal immigrants.
Cambodia is also a party to the Convention against Torture (CAT) and the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Both reiterate the fundamental principle of the Refugee Convention of “non-refoulement”, whereby no one should be forcibly returned to a place where he or she may be tortured, judicially or otherwise. This is a cardinal principle of international protection, which has offered safe asylum, protected against torture and saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of refugees worldwide. Such risks should have been assessed fairly and objectively before any decision was taken about these persons.
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