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(New York) Nepali officials should immediately release a group of imprisoned Tibetans to the protection of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Human Rights Watch said today. On May 29, Nepali officials sought to turn the group over to Chinese authorities intent on returning them to China, where they would have faced the risk of persecution.

"It is outrageous that Nepal would even contemplate handing Tibetans over given the well-documented mistreatment of Tibetans returned to China," said Brad Adams, executive director of the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch. "Nepal has a clear obligation to protect all Tibetans in Nepal from forced return to China."
Human Rights Watch supports the efforts of the UNHCR to insist that Nepal honor its obligations under customary international law to protect Tibetans from being returned home where their lives or freedom would be threatened. International refugee standards also protect individuals with a well-founded fear of persecution from being accessed by the government of their home country without their consent.

On April 17, the Nepali Immigration Department sentenced a group of Tibetans to prison terms ranging between three and ten months in lieu of fines totaling U.S.$1,713, which the group members could not pay. Along with three young children, they had entered Nepal in their efforts to reach Nelen Khang, the Tibetan Refugee Center in Kathmandu, and then to proceed to India. The children were placed in UNHCR custody.

On May 29, after the Nepal Department of Immigration asked UNHCR to return the children, staff from Nelen Khang went to the immigration prison in Dilli Bazaar to pay the fines and request release of the group members into UNHCR custody. As had been longstanding practice, UNHCR would have then facilitated their further passage to India.

Instead, Nelen Khang found two Chinese embassy officials present at the immigration prison preparing paperwork to have the Tibetans released into Chinese custody. The Chinese officials had brought a van and were accompanied by six Nepali police officers. Nelen Khang immediately contacted UNHCR. UNHCR complained and the Chinese officials left the immigration facility. On orders from the Director of Immigration, Nepali police handcuffed the refugees and transported them to police headquarters in Kathmandu, where they remain. UNHCR officials have formally requested interviews with the Tibetan detainees.

Under the UNHCR Revised Guidelines on Applicable Criteria and Standards Relating to the Detention of Asylum Seekers, the Nepali government is obligated to inform detainees of their right to counsel or, where possible, to receive free legal assistance. In addition, the refugees are entitled to independent and automatic review of the necessity of their detention, the right to contact and be contacted by UNHCR, and to communicate privately and have the means to do so made available.

"Instead of protecting them, the Nepali government put the refugees in harm's way," said Adams. "It doesn't matter why the Tibetans left home, but the very act of leaving puts them at risk of persecution should they be returned. The Nepali government has increased that danger dramatically, first by disclosing their identities to Chinese officials, and then by attempting to summarily deport them."

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