Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A group of Lao Hmong refugees who were rounded up in Bangkok in November 2006 to be deported are still being held in detention, in two cells at an immigration detention centre in Nong Khai, Thailand. The UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) demanded Tuesday 17 November that Thailand release the group, which was part of a larger pool of internationally recognized refugees. Four countries have offered to re-settle them.

The UNHCR in Geneva recalls the background to their detention:

“Many of the Hmong living in the highlands of Laos took part in the war that engulfed Laos in the 1960s and 1970s. When the Pathet Lao came to
power in 1975, many tens of thousands of Lao Hmong fled to Thailand seeking asylum, and large numbers were resettled in Western countries,
mostly in the United States.

“The situation of the Hmong today is very different from what it was inthe 1970s, but the Nong Khai group are part of the legacy left by a
troubled past. Originally 147 refugees, they were rounded up for deportation and transferred on 08 December 2006 to the Nong Khai immigration
detention centre on the Mekong River border with Laos where they have been held since. With babies born in detention, the number now stands at 158.”

A UN body has ruled that the detention of Myanmar democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi is illegal under Burmese domestic law. Suu Kyi has spent more than 13 years confined by house arrest under orders from the government.

The decision Monday 23 March marks the fifth time that Suu Kyi’s confinement has been declared arbitrary and illegal under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The ruling stated that Suu Kyi be released immediately and without condition from her continued house arrest. Reuters, BBC