By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS,
Kathmandu : Concerned at the recent decision by Nepal to crack down on Tibetans without valid documents, the New York-based International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) has asked the Maoist-led government of Nepal to resume issuing identity cards to the thousands of refugees whose applications for documents have been pending for years.
“Tibetans who arrived in Nepal prior to 1989 and their offspring are eligible to receive a registration certificate (RC), which allows them to remain in Nepal with certain limited civil rights,” the ICT said in a press statement.
“However, Nepal has been unreliable in the issuance of RCs and thousands of Tibetans who are eligible have been waiting for years for processing to resume.”
In 2000, as the US showed concern over the delay, Nepal’s home ministry told the US Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues Assistant Secretary Julia Taft that the government would issue RCs to all eligible Tibetans.
However, it is yet to be done.
“We call on the Nepali government to resume the issuance of RCs, which it stopped in the 1990s, to all those Tibetans who are eligible for legal residency in Nepal,” the ICT said.
The appeal comes after Nepal’s new Maoist-led government began a crackdown on Tibetans staying in Nepal without valid papers in a bid to stop the continuous protests by the diaspora since March, demanding an international investigation into the unrest in Tibet.
In the past, Nepal police used to arrest the demonstrators and later, release them.
However, during new Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda’s visit to China last month, the Nepali delegation was asked by Beijing to take sterner measures to stop the protests, which had become a major source of embarrassment and annoyance for the Chinese government.
Consequently, this week, police arrested 137 protesters and instead of releasing them, handed over to the UN refugee agency, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), asking it to verify how many of the protesters possessed the RCs.
“Those who possess valid papers will be allowed to stay on in Nepal,” home ministry spokesman Modraj Dottel told IANS. “However, those who do not, will be treated by UNHCR in accordance with international laws and norms.”
Nepal suspects most of the protesters are residents of Dharamsala in India, the seat of exiled Tibetan leader Dalai Lama.
Those who do not have valid documents are likely to be sent back to India or the places they came from.
However, Dottel denied media reports that they would be deported to Tibet.
“It would be entirely the UNHCR’s responsibility,” he said.
The 137 Tibetans who are currently at the UNHCR-funded Tibetan Refugee Reception Centre in Kathmandu are mostly lay people although there are some monks and nuns.
The oldest is in his late 50s and the youngest is 16. This is the first time the UNHCR has been involved in conducting such an investigation, which indicates increased scrutiny by Nepal of the Tibetan population in this country.
There are over 20,000 registered Tibetan refugees living in Nepal. However, under increasing pressure from China, the diaspora faces a hard time, not being allowed to register marriages, the birth of children or own businesses.
Though Nepal allows Bhutanese refugees to be resettled abroad, it has however, under Beijing’s pressure, stopped a bid by the US government to resettle about 5,000 Tibetan refugees in the US.
“Tibetans perceive themselves as increasingly vulnerable under the new Maoist regime in power in Nepal and many fear their status will deteriorate further,” the ICT said.