Word: asylum
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Thailand's military packed more than 4,000 Hmong asylum seekers into trucks and drove them from refugee camps to neighboring Laos, a single-party state that's been accused of persecuting the Hmong since they backed U.S. forces during the Vietnam War. Thailand maintains that Hmong living illegally in Thailand are economic migrants, not political refugees in need of international protection - but the decision to forcibly repatriate them drew international condemnation. Human Rights Watch called the expulsion "appalling," while the U.S. State Department argued that the refugees deserved to be protected from threats they faced in their homeland...
...Natacha Bouchart, conservative mayor of Calais and a backer of Sarkozy's anti-immigration hard line, says her city and others on the coast are "hostage to the British" asylum laws. She says the U.K. should tighten those rather than shift the responsibility on French authorities to keep illegal aliens from making it to Britain. (Read a TIME postcard from Calais...
...Last year, an anti-infiltration bill that would legalize the practice and allow the deportation of any individual who illegally enters the country passed its first reading in the Knesset. The law, if it passes, will also make it legal to imprison asylum seekers from Sudan. As citizens of one of Israel's enemies, they would be considered "enemy nationals" and could face up to seven years in prison. "Israel is trying to make the country appear inhospitable to dissuade another mass flow of asylum seekers from Egypt," says Rozen. On Dec. 8, Israeli media reported government plans to build...
...fled the war-torn Sudanese province of Darfur and arrived in Israel in July 2007, the choice was clear. "In Egypt I was always being harassed by the police and I wasn't allowed to work. So how could I make money to buy food?" In Israel, Rozen says, asylum seekers may be turned down for work permits, but a majority finds work, because "officials turn a blind eye." Khamise says there was another reason for his journey. He decided to head for Israel after learning about the Holocaust. "The story of the Jewish people is similar to ours...
...Yigal Palmor, spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, told TIME that hot return had been approved by both the Israeli and Egyptian justice systems, with the knowledge of the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) in the region. "We know for a fact that most of these people are not asylum seekers. Some of them are, but most are illegal immigrants," he added. However, the UNHCR has condemned the procedure. On Nov. 26, in comments on an ongoing case before Israel's high court, UNHCR said that Egypt is not safe for asylum seekers. It mentions the regular imprisonment by Egypt...