Lord Alton visits UNHCR to discuss brutal treatment of Pak-Christian asylum seekers in Thailand

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On Friday September 4th, during a visit to Bangkok’s Detention Centre for Refugees, the British Independent Peer, David Alton (Lord Alton of Liverpool, a senior member of the All Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion or Belief), met Pakistani Christians who are being held there.

One detainee told him that he and his six year old son are sharing a cell with 95 other men and children and is permitted to see his wife and other children, who are held elsewhere in the Detention centre, once a week for one hour. 

Back in July, BPCA chairman Wilson Chowdhry raised the terrible situation of struggling Pakistani Christian asylum seekers that he saw when he visited Thailand in May and put Lord Alton in touch with Papa Thongchai, a Thai pastor contact of the BPCA’s who has been helping Pakistani Christians. 

At least 8 asylum seekers have died so far this year simply because of inability to pay for medical treatment.  Families are arrested for overstaying their visas and are separated by gender and crammed into detention cells so overcrowded that people were forced to sleep crouching over each other or standing up.  To get freedom and a two year immunity from future arrest, already impoverished and destitute families have to come up with £920 in fines.  Because of overcrowding some are placed in the Central Jail, shackled in metal chains with murderers and rapists, and subjected to bail fees of over £3.50 for every single day they overstayed their visa and with no protection against re-arrest.  

In the trip, organized with the help of children’s charity the Jubilee Campaign, Lord Alton had meetings with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in which he presented officials with a petition organised by Pakistani Christian leaders in Bangkok along with a dossier of evidence that documented the horrific overcrowding; the extreme delays in processing asylum applications; the ongoing lack of resource and personnel from UNHCR and more.  The situation of vulnerable women and children; how detainees don’t get legal representation; the extremely problematic translation provision; denial of education for youngsters and the way evidence showing how violence in Pakistan is escalating against Christians is being dismissed. 

Lord Alton also met with British officials over the situation, as well as with the help of BPCA ally Papa Thongchai who introduced him to several groups of Pakistani Christians who are forced to live illegally because their applications for asylum or refugee status aren’t being processed. 

Apparently UNHCR officials admitted that there is “extreme overcrowding” in the detention centres, and that conditions are actually better in Thai prisons.  Lord Alton commented that “the exodus from Pakistan is driven by visceral hatred and a fanatical disregard for the rights of minorities. In a country where the brave Minister for Minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti, can be murdered in broad daylight, where churches are bombed, where an illiterate woman can be sentenced to death of alleged blasphemy charges, where a husband and wife can be burnt alive in front of their young children, and where there is a culture of impunity which rarely leads to those responsible being brought to justice, it is little wonder that many Christians are fleeing for their lives. It doubly compounds their suffering when the international community fails to step up to the plate in defence of those who have to endure such pitiless suffering and hardship.”    

Wilson Chowdhry Chairman of the BPCA said:“Pak-Christians make up the largest body of asylum seekers in Thailand with numbers estimated at 4600 by the UNHCR, however a German humanitarian group ‘International Society for Human Rights’  believes the figure is closer to 8000. Undeniably Pakistani Christians are fleeing their homeland in their droves choosing countries such as Thailand, Malaysia and Sri Lanka for safety, as tourist visas are inexpensive and have an easy protocol. However the reception they receive, though warm at first, becomes brutal on expiry of their visas. We thank Lord Alton for his visit which will no doubt serve to highlight a humanitarian concern that is set to escalate as the lives of Pak-Christians in the nation of Pakistan reaches a nadir.”

He added: “Complaints that the UNHCR have been less than efficient in their administration of asylum documents have caused frustration. However, we hope Lord Alton’s visit to Thailand will result in a more expeditious process, especially now that European nations have agreed larger quotas for asylum seekers applying for safety in the west.  We also hope that Europe recognises the desperation faced by Christians fleeing persecution and that a high risk status is adopted for them, as Christians have nowhere else to go in a world that has become increasingly fundamental.”