Kaladan News

 

Dated: Sunday, March 13, 2005

 

Illegal Migrant Workers Crackdown in Malaysia

 


Chittagong, March 13: From the beginning of March 01, 2005, a nationwide crackdown was carried out on illegal migrant workers in Maylaysia by deploying 300,000 police, government officers and civilian volunteers, sources said.

 

During the crackdown operation, 868 illegal foreign workers were arrested within three days. Of them 73 were Burmese illegal workers, said Tan Cyai Ho, the Deputy Home Minister.

 

On October 2004, Malaysian government announced to crackdown illegal migrant workers. But the government gave amnesty period to leave the illegal foreign workers till the end of February 2005. During the amnesty period, about 400,000 illegal migrant workers returned to their home since the amnesty was offered reported by Malaysiakini Paper.

 

Some illegal foreign workers have not been allowed to leave the country as the amnesty period is over and they can be prosecuted and punished on immigration offences. The amnesty period was over on midnight of 28th February 2005, paper more added.

 

These migrant workers have voluntarily chosen to leave and have on their own a cord, purchased tickets to do so. Many of them have lost their jobs and had to wait for money to be sent over by family members back home. Others were not paid by their employers until the very last time,reported by Suaram of Malaysia.

 

On 8th March, 24-ethnic Rohingya Arakanese from Burma, were detained by immigration who were staging a hunger strike outside the Malaysian headquarters of the UNHCR, according to Kuniya who lives in Malaysia.

 

Some of them have been living in Malaysia for 10 to 15 years. They were protesting the delay by the UNHCR in resetting them to a third country. Of them 14 men 7 children 30 women including two pregnant women, said Mohammad Radzi Hussain of Malaysia.

 

“A protestor named Yunus Nazir, 25, said, “We have no place to go, and have no rights at all. We have no penny for food and our children cannot get education. We have no job here as employers didn’t recognize the official refugee ID cards given by the UN body,” reported by AP.

 

An estimated 10,000 ethnic Rohingya are living in Malaysia. Last year, the government has agreed to grand the Rohingyas in the country as refugees and grant temporary stay permits, but we have not received any further information regarding this issue, said Moktar Ahamed from Malaysia.

 

On 17th February 2005, 18- Burmese of the Shan ethnic minority group were arrested outside of the Burmese Embassy. They have been held in Sungai Buloh Prison expect for one female protester who will be detained at Kajan Prison. This was the second mass arrest of Burmese nationals this year.

 

In January 2005, about 164 Chin Burmese were arrested by police outside the Burmese Embassy, according to Suaram of Malaysia.

 

The Malaysian government estimated that there are more than one million illegal migrant workers in the country, mainly from Indonesia, Philippines, Burma, Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka, according to Malaysiakini  paper.##

 

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