UNITED NATIONS: The global fight against terrorism should not weaken the international refugee protection regime, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said on Thursday.

“Refugees and asylum seekers must not be discriminated against because their religion, ethnicity, national origin or political affiliation are somehow assumed to link them to terrorism”, Ruud Lubbers told the Security Council.

The warning comes at a time when several countries, including the United States, Britain, Canada and Germany, have introduced new laws or tightened existing legislation against refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants.

The new measures, which came into force after last September’s terrorist attacks in the United States, have been officially promoted as a necessary part of the US-led international “war against terrorism”.

“Governments must avoid resorting to the mandatory or arbitrary detention of asylum seekers, and to procedures that do not comply with the standards of due process,” Lubbers told delegates.

Detention of asylum seekers must remain the exception, not the rule, he argued, pointing out that re-settlement programmes must be maintained, and must not discriminate against people of particular ethnic groups of nationalities.

Lubbers’ criticisms are implicitly directed at the United States, which has held without bail some 1,200 individuals, mostly migrants, refugees and students from Middle Eastern or Muslim nations. The arrests were made after Sept 11.

The US Justice Department has released few details about the detainees. Most of them are from Pakistan, Egypt, Yemen, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria.

Several human rights organisations have complained that the government’s refusal to disclose the identities of many of those detained or to specify charges is a violation of basic human rights.

The American Civil Liberties Union wrote to several foreign consulates based in New York and Washington offering assistance. ”We are particularly interested in highlighting instances of abuse by our government and in developing systematic litigation to challenge its unconstitutional practice,” the group’s letter said.

New US anti-terrorism measures include detention of non-citizens by immigration officials for up to one week without charges. They may be detained indefinitely if they are deemed a threat to national security.

Last month, federal authorities began a search for more than 6,000 men of Middle Eastern origin who had apparently disappeared after being asked to leave the country.

Although the vast majority of those violating deportation orders are from Latin America, the Justice Department is now singling out only Arab and Muslim men over other foreign nationals in their search for visa violators and asylum seekers.

James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, said: ”There’s no question because of September 11 there’s a lower tolerance level for visa overstays, and there’s a hyper-sensitivity to Arab overstays.”

Mary Robinson, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has already expressed fears over the “worrying rise” in racial hatred following the Sept 11 terrorist attacks.

Robinson said she was concerned about the growing number of incidents relating to xenophobia and “Islamophobia” in the wake of the US attacks. She said that these incidents were further aggravated by anti-Arab and anti-Asian sentiments.

“This is an issue where real leadership is very much needed,” she said. —Dawn/InterPress Service.