Kazakstan Under Fire For Reported Extradition of Uighur

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has said Kazakstan’s legal system lacks transparency and is failing to protect the rights of asylum-seekers. Commentators interviewed by NBCentralAsia say violations of international obligations to protect refugees are damaging to the country’s reputation, and they recommend that a law on refugees be introduced as soon as possible.



Last week, the UNHCR expressed concern about the fate of Arkin Sabirov, a Chinese national of Uighur ethnicity, who disappeared on October 23. The agency said Sabirov was believed to have been secretly deported to China, noting that the increasing trend of extraditions of asylum-seekers under UNHCR protection was cause for concern.



In November 2005, international attention was focused on Kazakstan when nine Uzbekistan nationals, including four asylum-seekers, disappeared under circumstances that were unclear.



The commentators interviewed by NBCentralAsia believe flaws in the legislation concerning refugee issues may create difficulties for Kazakstan’s foreign relations, most immediately its bid to chair the OSCE in 2009.



Although Kazakstan ratified the 1951 international convention on refugees back in December 1998, it has yet to pass corresponding national laws. Eduard Poletaev, editor-in-chief of the Mir Yevrazii journal, argues that this legislation needs to be introduced urgently, because continuing political trouble in neighbouring countries will always place Kazakstan in a quandary as to whether it should follow bilateral arrangements it has made with these states, or honour its international commitments.



“Kazakstan must show itself to be a convinced adherent of international law when it comes to political refugees,” said Poletaev. “However much Kazakstan tries to portray itself as a democratic country, it is falling down on its treatment of refugees.”



The UNHCR says it has received over 400 applications for refugee status in the last two years, most of them from citizens of Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and China. At present there are 180 people who have been granted this status.



Vitaly Ponomarev, director of the Central Asian human rights monitoring programme with the Moscow-based rights group Memorial, it is Uzbek nationals who are in the most difficult position. Many of them are vulnerable to formal or covert extradition and even abduction.



“There are currently hundreds of Uzbek nationals in Kazakstan who have fled persecution in their home country. But the Kazak authorities will not offer asylum to political or religious refugees from other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States,” said Ponomarev.



A Kazak government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, explained, “We are bound by many agreements with Uzbekistan and [China] that we concluded as members of the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. If we take in refugees from these countries, we will be breaching our obligations under these agreements.”



(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)