Cambodia Denies Deporting Vietnamese Asylum Seekers + Asylum rush: New group arrives from Vietnam

[geovalin]

Heng Reaksmey

January 28, 2015 3:35 PM

PHNOM PENH—

The Cambodian government is denying reports it deported seven Montagnard asylum seekers back to Vietnam, saying it only sent back Vietnamese farmers who illegally entered the country.

“We did not deport the asylum seekers," said Khiet Chantharith, a spokesman for the national police. "We have an immigration law and are also a signatory to the 1951 convention on refugees. We always abide by the 1951 refugee convention."

Rights workers, however, say the deportees were in fact ethnic Montagnards who had sought political asylum but the Cambodian government failed to give them a proper hearing.

Chhay Thi, Ratanakiri provincial coordinator for the rights group Adhoc, said police in the province did not wait before deporting all seven people on Saturday.

At least 14 Montagnard asylum seekers are still believed to be evading authorities in the forests of eastern Cambodia.

Montagnards, many of whom are Protestants, have long claimed persecution in Vietnam for religious reasons and their aid of U.S. troops during the Vietnam War decades ago. The Montagnards have created political tensions in the past.

In 2000 and 2001, thousands fled to Cambodia. Many were rounded up and returned to Vietnam, although some eventually were given asylum in the United States and other Western countries.

http://www.voanews.com/content/cambodia-denies-deporting-vietnamese-asylum-seekers/2617376.html

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Asylum rush: New group arrives from Vietnam

Thu, 29 January 2015

Phak Seangly

Eighteen more Montagnards arrived in Ratanakkiri yesterday morning, bringing the total number of the Christian asylum seekers in hiding in the northeastern province to 32, villagers and a local rights group said last night.

According to an ethnic Jarai villager, speaking on condition of anonymity, the latest arrivals – 16 men and two women – crossed into Ratanakkiri’s O’Yadav district at about 10am yesterday.

The villager, who has been helping Montagnards, an indigenous group from Vietnam’s central highlands, who have descended on the province in recent months, said the latest group would not stay with the 14 asylum seekers already in hiding.

“We do not place them in the same group, or the authorities and police will find them,” he said.

Chhay Thy, provincial coordinator for local rights group Adhoc, said he was told about the group at 7pm yesterday, and expected that more would follow in the coming weeks.

A UN officer, who asked not to be named, was unaware of the latest arrivals, but said the UN was “advocating and negotiating” with the government to deal with the issue.

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/asylum-rush-new-group-arrives-vietnam