Anjali Sharma
GG News Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, 3rd July. UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on Tuewsday called on India to cease the arbitrary mass detention of Rohingya refugees and refrain from forcible deportation and returns to Myanmar, where they could face serious human rights violations and abuses.
The Committee said it was “concerned about reports of arbitrary mass detention of the Rohingya, including children, in inadequate conditions and in some cases without due process or access to legal representation.”
It expressed alarm on the reports of “several cases of forcible deportation and returns to Myanmar between 2018 and 2022 as well as the ongoing risk of deportation of the remaining Rohingya in India, in violation of the principle of non-refoulement.”
The committee urged India to end the arbitrary mass detention of the Rohingya, and only apply immigration detention as a measure of last resort for the shortest possible period and to provide detained Rohingya with legal safeguards and access to legal counsel.
The Committee called on India to “end racial discrimination against Rohingya and to remove restrictions preventing them from enjoying their rights without discrimination in particular with regard to access to employment, health and education, especially by ensuring the issuance of long-term visas and other identity document.”
The Committee is a body composed of 18 independent experts that monitors implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination by its States parties.
Its members are elected by the States parties to the Convention and serve in their personal capacity, independent of the UN and governments.
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