Thailand’s treatment of refugees has come under scrutiny for confining 140,000 refugees to camps along the Thai/Myanmar border, and refusing them the right to work and study.
The US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) in June ranked Thailand as one of the 10 worst places for refugees.
USCRI and others have also criticised the Thai military for returning 800 Hmong asylum-seekers to Laos in early July.
Some 8,000 Hmong have been living in the Huai Nam Khao camp in Thailand’s Petchabun Province since 2004. The Hmong claim they fled harassment and persecution in their homeland because of ties to the CIA-backed force that fought the communists in the 1960s and 70s.
Read my article for IRIN (irinnews.org) (the UN’s humanitarian information service):
www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79227
