Syed Hamid calls on gov't to sign UN Refugee Convention

UPDATED | Former law minister and foreign minister Syed Hamid Albar has called for Malaysia to sign the United Nations Convention relating to the status of Refugees.

He said that even without signing, Malaysia has done good work for refugees, and yet can continue to improve its track record.

"I think ultimately we need to sign (the convention) because we had done so much good work.

"Our good track record of dealing with refugees needs to be formalised," he said in Parliament today.

According to him, Malaysia has a long history of assisting refugees, including the Indochinese ‘boat people’, Acehnese, Bosnians, Palestinians, Syrians and Rohingya. 

However, the assistance has thus far been ad-hoc and our legal framework still does not provide legal status to refugees. 

"The lack of legal recognition means that refugees in Malaysia live in a legal vacuum; they are treated like undocumented migrants, denied access to basic services and legal work rights and left vulnerable to arrest, detention and deportation back to the war-torn countries from which they have fled," said Syed Hamid.

Syed Hamid, who served as an MP from 1990 to 2013, was speaking to reporters after giving a keynote speech during a Parliamentary Briefing on Legal Framework for Refugees in Malaysia.

Among those in attendance were MPs Hassan Karim, Maria Chin Abdullah and Fahmi Fadzil.

"I think now we need to have a planned refugee policy. I don't see many speeches that touch on the refugee issue in our parliament," he said.

"We are here to address an issue of great global, regional and national significance, the issue of protecting our refugee brothers and sisters who are fleeing from war and persecution in their homelands," added Syed Hamid.

He said that in the world today, over 70.8 million people are forcibly displaced, and 25.9 million among them are refugees. 3.5 million of those refugees live in the Asia Pacific region, and close to 200,000 are here in Malaysia. 

The convention, which is more commonly known as the 1951 Refugee Convention, defines the term ‘refugee’ and outlines the rights of the displaced, as well as the legal obligations of states to protect them.

The core principle is non-refoulement, which asserts that a refugee should not be returned to a country where they face serious threats to their life or freedom. This is now considered a rule of customary international law.

Syed Hamid said he consistently recommended to the government during his time in Cabinet that Malaysia sign this document.

"I wouldn't put a time period because I have been recommending it for a long time for us to sign and I thought this year that it was nearer," he said.  

However, in doing so, he acknowledged that the government would have to confront fears that signing the convention would open the floodgates for refugees to seize the jobs of Malaysians.

Still, Syed Hamid said: "We must remember that refugees are not the problem. Refugees are people like you and me who have become victims of war, genocide and discrimination that they did not create and do not deserve."

"The root cause of the problem is our failure as a global community to end wars, in places such as Syria, Yemen and Gaza, and our failure to abolish discrimination against minorities in places like Myanmar."