By Salai Za Uk Ling

24 Dec 2006 - Kuala Lumpur: Signs of festivities are everywhere as Chin refugee community in Malaysia prepares for festive celebrations. But hundreds of them will be spending this year’s Christmas in detention centers across Malaysia. More than 500 Chin refugees and asylum seekers are languishing in Malaysian jails and detention centers after being arrested for immigration offences. Detainees range from young single males to entire family members; to mothers and pregnant women to children as young as three years old.

Just last week, 43 Chins were arrested during an immigration raid in a construction worksite near Singaporean border in government’s ongoing operation against “illegal immigrants.” Mr. Peng had been working in the site for more than one month to support his wife and two young children before being arrested in last week’s sweep. Like other recognized refugees in the country, Mr. Peng is not legally permitted to work in Malaysia. Last month, he found a menial work in a construction site in Jahor, more than three hundred kilometers away from Kuala Lumpur where he and his family live. He took the job there, though it meant having to leave his family alone. He needed to earn extra money for the family this Christmas. He and his family are awaiting resettlement in a third country and were recently interviewed for relocation in the United States. His plan was to come back to Kuala Lumpur to spend Christmas with his family, but he is now being detained with dozens of his co-workers and is facing prospects of prolonged detention and even deportation. His wife and two children are now spending this Christmas without Mr. Peng.

Read more at the Chinland Guardian

On December fifth, I met up with Kam Li, the director of the Kachin Development Organization, to talk shop. The KDO started about two years ago, but have had an office and drop-in center for less than a year. When I met up with them last year, Kam Li wasn't working as the coordinator yet. A Kachin friend of mine in Chiang Mai put me in touch with his brother who lives in Malaysia; he works in a swanky restaurant in KL, but is also involved with the KDO. Kam Li came to meet me with a tape recorder, and as we sat in the tea shop he asked me about how they should organize, and what activities they should do.   more »

Later Monday evening, Uncle asks if he could show me his rejection letter from the U.S. His case had been referred to the DHS for a resettlement interview, but wasn't accepted. The letter shows a list of possible reasons for rejection, with the relevant option ticked. The reason he was rejected was that the interviewing officer had given him an 'opportunity to present evidence to support his case', but as he could not produce it, he was rejected. The evidence he was asked to produce was a photo of him and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, proving he was a member of the NLD. He'd left the photo at home, and asked if he couldn't bring it back to show him. The interviewing officer told him there was no time. And that was that.   more »

On Monday, the fourth, I went with Victor and Ling to the magistrate court to watch the proceedings for 23 Chin who were arrested in the raid two months ago. The court is a sprawling marvel of Moorish (as the internet tells me) architecture, with golden domed minarets and spiraling stairwells. The whitewashed hallways are dappled with ornately patterned sunlight streaming through the iron latticework in the dome shaped windows.

The hallways are lined with courtrooms, each with heavy hardwood double doors. There appeared to be hundreds of rooms on several floors in the building. We didn't yet know which room the 23 would be brought to, so we ended up wandering up and down the hallway, someone occasionally popping their head into an open door. We finally met up with the lawyer who was sent by the UNHCR to represent them.   more »

I am starting to remember last Sunday more and more fondly as the week goes by. Why? You may ask - did something fun or interesting happen on Sunday? The answer to that is no. Nothing happened on Sunday. It was a wonderfully unproductive day that I got the better part of to myself. I even got to take a nap. It being Sunday, many people, including Uncle, who seems to be there every time I turn around, were in church. He made a great effort to guilt me into going, but the fact is that I hate church. I am already trying to plot how I can be absent from the neighborhood this coming Sunday, as I gained reprieve last week by telling them 'maybe next week'.   more »

Saturday was a lazy day compared to Friday. Breakfast was Ijagwe and coffee again, with both Uncle and Belle*, who may possibly be the saddest girl in the world. I've spent enough time listening to Uncle tell me how great his god is and that he's praying for me to become Christian, and I know she feels the same way. I often notice her looking at me with an expression that strikes me as being a mixture of pity and regret, and I feel like she's imagining my poor heathen soul burning in hell. I could be wrong though, and it's just as likely that she looks at everyone like that.

I spent the afternoon wandering around with Zaw at the mall, looking for a plug adaptor for my laptop. They have Christmas decorations up in all the malls, and the shopping crowds to match. The crowds, however, are par for the course in a country where shopping seems to be a national past-time.   more »

For my first full day here, the CRC had a meeting with the UNHCR to discuss re-opening registration, so I made arrangements to visit with Li from the Kachin Development Organization. We met up after my requisite breakfast of ijagwe, Chinese doughnuts made Burmese style, and sweet milky coffee.

When I was here a year ago, the KDO was just starting to get organized, and they didn't yet have a proper office to operate out of. They had asked me lots of questions about organizing and operating that I'm hardly qualified to answer, and told me that next time I visited, they would be able to show me their office. Li did just that. Besides the advocacy work he does, like helping Kachins with employment, getting referral letters for hospital visits, and networking with other NGOs, they are also starting up a Kachin radio program, and a handicraft program to generate income. He showed me the room where they have their office set up, with a computer on a low table, and a pile of equipment I didn't recognize that was used for their radio program. He asked what I thought of it and I told him it looked just like a student office. He asked if it didn't look like an 'underground' office - I'm not sure I've ever seen an underground office before, but said it probably did.   more »