Cambodia’s treatment of Montagnard refugees focuses critics on Australia’s asylum seeker deal

3 December 2014
The Sydney Morning Herald
Ethnic minorities and indigenous people / Government / Human rights / International relations / Social development / The poor
Asia for Human Rights Watch / Cambodia-Australia refugee deal / Phil Robertson / United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) / Vietnamese Montagnards

Cambodian authorities are hunting more than a dozen ethnic minority hill people from Vietnam, drawing international criticism and raising further doubts about Australia’s controversial agreement to send refugees to Phnom Penh. … Babar Baloch, a spokesman for the United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), warned the Montagnards’ involuntary repatriation without a chance to make a claim for asylum would violate Cambodia’s international obligations. … Phil Robertson, deputy director in Asia for Human Rights Watch, said sending the Montagnards back to Vietnam would “show just how little refugee rights and protection mean in Cambodia and no amount of public relations spin to the contrary from Canberra will convince anyone otherwise”. …

 Lindsay Murdoch
http://www.smh.com.au/world/cambodias-treatment-of-montagnard-refugees-focuses-critics-on-australias-asylum-seeker-deal-20141203-11z808.html