The petition challenging Rohingya refugees’ ‘illegal detention’ in India | Explained Premium

The Hindu explains the writ petition in the Supreme Court alleging that India’s arrest and detention of the Rohingya refugees is illegal and unconstitutional.

The story so far: Shadiya, a 22-year-old, has spent three years detained in a ‘holding’ centre for Rohingya refugees; separated from her child, she lives in a closed space without sunlight, described as big enough to barely spread one’s mattress. She was arrested in 2020 for living in India ‘illegally’, despite holding a valid refugee card that signifies her status as a persecuted minority in her home country, Myanmar.

A writ petition in the Supreme Court on October 10 challenged the hostile and dehumanising conditions many Rohingya refugees like Shadiya face today, alleging that India’s arrest and detention of the “world’s most persecuted ethnic minority” population is illegal and unconstitutional. “Hundreds of Rohingya refugees including pregnant women and minors, have been detained unlawfully and indefinitely... They endure severe violations and dehumanising conditions within these detention facilities,” the petition stated. The Court has asked the Union Government to file a response within four weeks.

Priyali Sur, founder of the Azadi Project, an organisation working for women from refugee communities, petitioned the Supreme Court to release Rohingya refugees ‘illegally’ and ‘arbitrarily’ detained in jails across the country, “despite the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) recognising their status as refugees”.

About 240 people, who were forced to flee persecution, are now detained on charges of illegal entry— 39 in a ‘shelter’ in Delhi and 235 others in a holding centre in Jammu, according to the UNHCR. About 46% of them are women and girls, 36% are children. The largest refugee population resides in Hyderabad, Jammu, Nuh and Delhi, per an estimate from Refugees international.

Rohingya refugees fled oppression and violence under a Buddhist-majoritarian government and the Rakhine State’s military operations. The International Court of Justice in January 2020 in a landmark judgment averred the Rohingyas had faced ‘irreparable damage’ and genocide at the hands of the Myanmar government, ordering officials to take emergency measures to protect the Rohingya Muslims. Amnesty (and other human rights groups) have called it an apartheid because Rohingya Muslims are “trapped in a dehumanising system of state-sponsored discrimination and racial segregation. This is apartheid – a crime against humanity as defined by international law.” Escalating attacks have resulted in more than seven lakh refugees fleeing the country, seeking refuge in neighbouring countries like Bangladesh, Thailand, Nepal and India.

Recent estimates show almost 40,000 refugees live in India, and about 20,000 of them hold a legal refugee card. Still, Shadiya is one of hundreds, if not thousands, of Rohingya refugees held by Indian authorities under the Foreigners Act of 1946, for not possessing ‘valid’ documents such as passports and visas. The petition notes that people are arbitrarily arrested and detained “without assigning any reason or often under the Foreigners’ Act and with no access to legal aid,” sometimes beyond their sentences or the maximum period of detention stipulated under the law. Shadiya, for instance, was asked to visit the metro station to sign some papers and was picked up by the police and taken to a ‘seva kendra’ in New Delhi, according to a report co-authored by Ms. Sur and Daniel Sullivan. The latest crackdown happened in July this year, when Uttar Pradesh arrested and detained 74 Rohingyas for ‘crossing the border illegally’; those detained had been living in the area for almost a decade, per the Rohingya Human Rights Initiative.

Several accounts describe the ‘inhumane’ conditions of detention centres and jails: these ‘holding centres’ place restrictions on mobility, access to education, basic healthcare, employment opportunities or legal services to defend themselves; many also struggle to access UNHCR refugee cards. A report found that hundreds of Myanmarese refugees placed in Imphal’s Churachandpur jail were required to work for basic amenities like food.