Aimaiti Alimu is a lanky 27-year old, with hair down to his shoulders, which, in better times, he might have trimmed. Here, in the quiet but ominous environs at Lampur Detention Centre, 40 kilometres from New Delhi, there are worse things to think about. He is sullen – the mosquitoes have evidently got to him. But the nervousness surfaces before long – he really doesn’t mind staying here, he pleads, “as long as they don’t send me back to China.” 

Lampur Detention Centre is a halfway house, where foreigners who have overstayed their visas, or are found to have committed any other offence are detained pending deportation. The guards at the Centre are affable, and while the living conditions are nowhere near comfortable, there are no obvious signs of ill-treatment. In any case, it is not for the guards to concern themselves with the detainees’ fate at Lampur – this is the privilege of the FRRO, the Foreigners Regional Registration Office of the Ministry of Home Affairs. “We just hold them here until the FRRO guys come to take them away,” one of the guards says. “We try to ensure that they are comfortable; all we ask is that they don’t create any trouble while they’re here”. 

Alimu is an Uighur from Xinjiang province in western China, where a movement to preserve Uighur culture and traditions is being put down, often brutally, by Beijing. The government also cracks down on political dissent. Peaceful demonstrations expressing opposition to government policies – such as the large scale settling of Han Chinese in the region, the lack of development of Uighur areas and the restrictions on religious and cultural expression – have been met by violence. Activists are routinely harassed, forcing many to leave the country. Arbitrary arrests and torture are common. Since 11 September 2001, China piggybacked on the United States’ war on terror, designating the Uighur movement as “terrorism” and using it as an excuse for further repression. 

Alimu was a member of the Uighur Democratic party (UDP) in Aksu in China’s Xinjiang province. He ran a video store, circulating, among other things, copies of videos containing speeches of UDP leaders. For this, he was arrested by the police seven times and tortured, including with electric shocks. When they came for him the eighth time, Alimu fled, first to Hong Kong, then to Dubai. He had no friends in Dubai, however, nor was there any way of applying for asylum. He therefore contacted a friend, another Uighur and a refugee, in India. He applied for a three-month Indian visa in Dubai and arrived in New Delhi on 14 February 2005. The very next day, he applied for refugee status at the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in New Delhi. 

UNHCR, in its wisdom, sat on the application for the better part of three months. It chose to overlook the precarious nature of Alimu’s situation. It did not take into account the fact that India’s growing friendship with China had made the question of Uighur refugees a matter of “national interest” for both countries, and that a few other previously arrived Uighur refugees were stuck in India despite having received permission to resettle in Sweden simply because New Delhi won’t give them an exit visa. Alimu tried to check with UNHCR several times regarding the status of his application, but received no answer. 

With the three-month visa period nearing its end, and with no papers from UNHCR to prove his refugee status, Alimu understandably panicked. On 9 May 2005, he made his way to the Ministry of Home Affairs office at Jaisalmer House, intending to have his visa extended. His visa was due to expire on 11 May 2005. A friend last saw him at Jaislamer House at 2 pm that day. He did not emerge, and the friend went home after midnight and waited for him there. 

No news of Alimu was received until the late afternoon of 10 May, when he was allowed to call his friend and inform him about his whereabouts. From Jaisalmer House, Alimu had apparently been taken to the FRRO, from where he was taken to the Lampur Detention Centre. 

Alimu speaks and understands no language apart from Uighur, making it impossible to know what was asked of him at these places. Nor was he allowed to call a friend who speaks a bit of Hindi and who could have helped translate. This raises fundamental questions about how FRRO may have determined that Alimu had to be detained. 

The fear that Alimu may be deported to China is very real. In February 2001, the Government of India sought to forcibly repatriate two Iranian refugees. It was only immediate action by local and international non-governmental organisations that stalled the deportation. In Alimu’s case, the sensitivities are as acute, if not more. 

Alimu’s case highlights the vast gaps in India’s ad hoc system of dealing with refugees. It has not signed the UN Convention Relating to Refugees of 1951 or its Optional Protocol. As a legal expert has pointed out, Indian laws do not recognise the category of “refugee” or the fact that there are persons who are compelled to leave their homes and countries due to threats to their lives and liberty. India deals with refugees under a legislation that is meant to apply to foreigners who voluntarily leave their homes in normal circumstances. At the moment, it is the Registration of Foreigners Act, 1939, and the Foreigners Act, 1946, that do not seek to, but end up governing, the treatment of asylum seekers/refugees. 

Even to the non-legal eye, the contents of the Foreigners Act, 1946, make for alarming reading. It is a wide-ranging, open-ended piece of legislation, setting down no rules on its own, but giving the Central Government the power to frame orders and provisions governing the treatment of foreigners, a system much vulnerable to arbitrary use.  

Legal experts have pointed out that India’s fundamental rights regime does guarantee certain rights for people like Alimu. Articles 21 (right to life), article 14 (right to equality), article 22 (rights of an arrestee or detenu) apply to all persons, and by implication to refugees. But in practice, as in Alimu’s case, it is different story. There is no procedure for considering cases on humanitarian grounds. There is also no mechanism that would, for example, supervise the work of the FRRO and verify the correctness of its determination. 

Alimu’s detention violates India’s constitutional and legal framework and obligations under international Conventions and Declarations. The Indian Supreme Court has also held that the “(preventive) detention of a foreign national who is not a resident of the country involves an element of international law and human rights and the appropriate authorities ought not to be seen to have been oblivious of its international obligations in this regard.” 

The National Human Rights Commission of India (NHRC), which was approached in this case, has yet to react. A complaint was sent to the NHRC on 10 May 2005, informing it about Alimu’s disappearance (as was the case then) and requesting it to take immediate action to ensure that Alimu was not deported. This was followed by an updated complaint on 12 May informing the NHRC that Alimu was known to have been taken to Lampur Detention Centre, followed by yet another letter to the NHRC Chairperson on 14 May 2005, describing the entire sequence of events and asking him to treat the complaint as a matter of urgency. 

As of 25 May, however, there has been no official response from the NHRC. 

Alimu can be spirited away from the detention centre at any time of day or night without anybody knowing about it. The NHRC’s inability to respond to urgent cases like Alimu’s does not bode well for its already flagging credibility. 

Refugees that are certified as such by UNHCR have a modicum of security, although such status does not prevent the Government from expelling them. Those without UNHCR status are at greater risk. It is therefore inconceivable that UNHCR took more than three months to grant refugee status to Alimu even though it was well aware of the risk that Uighur refugees face. 

UNHCR is clearly in need of some serious soul-searching, and its record shows that there has not been enough of it. Nevertheless, domestic mechanisms are key, and Alimu’s case should serve as an opportunity to take a long, hard look at India’s treatment of refugees. Arbitrary and ad hoc actions by unsupervised national executive agencies put lives like Alimu’s at risk. This is unacceptable and unworthy of a democracy.

 Human Rights Features