KUALA LUMPUR: Rights group Amnesty International voiced concern on Tuesday after Malaysian police detained more than 100 Rohingya asylum seekers at a UN facility in Kuala Lumpur.
The group had traveled by bus to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) compound in the capital early Monday, after being threatened with eviction from their informal settlement in northern Penang state the previous day, according to local media reports and UNHCR.
Police rounded up 110 men, women and children and transported them by truck to national police headquarters on Monday night, before moving them on Tuesday to a “location designated by a non-governmental organization” elsewhere in the capital, authorities said.
“Malaysia cannot build a credible refugee protection system while simultaneously treating refugees as people to be rounded up, detained, and removed,” Amnesty International’s Malaysia branch said.
“Refugees and asylum seekers should be treated with dignity and in accordance with their human rights, as people who need protection,” it added.
