December 8, 2001	Saturday	Ramazan 22, 1422

UNITED NATIONS: New anti-terrorism laws in Britain, Canada, and the United States risk “negative repercussions” for innocent refugees and asylum-seekers, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) warned on Thursday.

The refugee agency said it is urging member states to conform to existing international refugee instruments, which clearly do not provide a safe haven to terrorists or protect them from criminal prosecution.

“On the contrary, they render the identification of persons engaged in terrorist activities possible and necessary, foresee their exclusion from refugee status and do not shield them against either criminal prosecution or expulsion,” a UNHCR spokesman said.

On Monday, the United States and Canada signed a bilateral agreement aimed at keeping terrorists and their supporters out of both countries, which share a 4,000-mile border.

The largest number of asylum-seekers in Canada are from Sri Lanka, followed closely by China, Pakistan, Hungary, India and Mexico. But most of these asylum-seekers either transit through the US, or through Western and Eastern Europe.

The refugees seeking asylum in the United States are mostly from China, Somalia, Haiti, Indonesia, Mexico and El Salvador.

Under the new agreement, refugees will have to seek asylum in the country of arrival on transit, rather than the most accommodating country.

Ruud Lubbers, head of UNHCR, has criticised Western European nations and Australia for increasingly closing their borders to those fleeing war and political persecution.

There are more than 21 million refugees and asylum-seekers worldwide, mostly refugees from war-ravaged countries.

UNHCR said the new laws could have negative repercussions if they were to deny access to asylum systems altogether or if there were insufficient safeguards to ensure that asylum-seekers are not expelled before their asylum claims have been properly examined.

Britain is also known to have rejected extradition requests for some of these refugees from countries such as Egypt, Libya and Sri Lanka.

Last month, Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi said that if US President George W. Bush wants to attack countries that provide safe heaven to terrorists, he should start by bombing London. —Dawn/The InterPress News Service.