It seemed to be business as usual here in Malaysia when I arrived on Thursday. I ended up having to make my own way from the airport to the CRC, a relatively simple task, but I still managed to get ripped off. The guys at the CRC were busy preparing a report for the UNHCR for a meeting to discuss the re-opening of registration. The CRC registers Chin asylum-seekers and then the UNHCR schedules interviews according to the order they are registered. At some point, though, the UNHCR lost the queue, and scores of people got passed over. General registration has been closed for well over a year now, but they are now going to re-open it - for the CRC's 2004 registration list.

There are a few new faces and a few old faces missing here. Simon, the old coordinator that I shadowed for two months last year is now in Australia, waiting for his new wife to join him. Van, the secretary, will be leaving for Australia within a week, while the new coordinator, Philemon expects to be leaving for America sometime next year. There are a few new staff members, more teachers, and the secretary's new baby, as well as a little gray and white cat courtesy of the UNHCR.

Unfortunately, the new teachers mean that the room I stayed in before - in a flat rented for the Chin Students Organization just across from the CRC, is not available. Instead, I get a mattress in the corner of the extra office here at the Center where Simon used to sleep. That also means cold bucket showers every morning and most afternoons, as the only hot water shower, however unpredictable, was at the other flat. Cold bucket showers are an experience one grows to love and hate at the same time - it's difficult to describe, but being forced to pour cold water over your own head is vastly different from standing under a proper shower that is cold.

Suaram, a local Malaysian human rights organization, now has an intern working full time on refugee issues. Ling Ling is a Chin who was resettled to Canada from India six years ago. He's staying here in the neighborhood where the CRC is. He just arrived two months ago, and the night he arrived there was a raid by relah, the citizen militia, in the middle of the night. He had the pleasure of standing outside with everyone else being inspected at 3 in the morning, and immediately went to work documenting people's experiences for a report to the government. As usual, the relah arrested people arbitrarily, being apparently unable to recognize a UNHCR card from a hole in the ground.

There were several very pregnant women arrested in that crackdown, in raids here and around the city. Two were deported to the Thai border, and at least one was 9 months pregnant and expecting any minute. Suaram submitted a memorandum to the government calling for a stop to the arrests of pregnant women and children, and detailing the inadequate conditions they are kept in in detention. The detention camps are severely overcrowded, the food is barely enough to keep a non-pregnant person alive, and health care is rarely provided. The Minister of Immigration responded in an news article, saying that there was no indication pregnant women were being mistreated in detention - as if the normal conditions were perfectly acceptable for any human being - and that the government will not consider anyone an asylum-seeker until they are recognized by the UNHCR as a refugee. Yes, in order to be an asylum-seeker in Malaysia, you must first become a registered refugee. The folks at Suaram certainly have their work cut out for them, advocating for refugee rights in a country where the immigration minister lacks a fundamental understanding of what an asylum-seeker is.