Biodun.BBC: illegal migrants

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Monday, December 16, 2019

ANALYSIS: Citizenship Amendment Bill: India's new 'anti-Muslim' law explained

Activists of Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti shout slogans during a protest against the government's Citizenship Amendment Bill in Guwahati on November 22, 2019 — Image captionOne analyst has called the bill the most consequential action of the Modi governmenti

by Susan Kumar and Biodun Iginla, BBC News Analysts, Delhi

India's parliament passed a bill that offers amnesty to non-Muslim illegal immigrants from three neighbouring countries.

The bill provides citizenship to religious minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

The government, led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), says this will give sanctuary to people fleeing religious persecution.

Critics say the bill is part of a BJP agenda to marginalise Muslims.

The Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) passed the upper house of parliament, where the BJP lacks a majority, by 125 votes to 105 on 11 December. It had cleared the lower house two days earlier.

The bill has already prompted widespread protests in the north-east of the country which borders Bangladesh, as many people there say they will be "overrun" by immigrants from across the border.

What does the bill say?

The CAB amends the 64-year-old Indian Citizenship law, which currently prohibits illegal migrants from becoming Indian citizens.

It defines illegal immigrants as foreigners who enter India without a valid passport or travel documents, or stay beyond the permitted time. Illegal immigrants can be deported or jailed.

The new bill also amends a provision which says a person must have lived in India or worked for the federal government for at least 11 years before they can apply for citizenship.

inRead invented by Teads

Image captionHindu refugees from Pakistan in a refugee camp in Jammu

Now there will be an exception for members of six religious minority communities - Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian - if they can prove that they are from Pakistan, Afghanistan or Bangladesh. They will only have to live or work in India for six years to be eligible for citizenship by naturalisation, the process by which a non-citizen acquires the citizenship or nationality of that country.

It also says people holding Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) cards - an immigration status permitting a foreign citizen of Indian origin to live and work in India indefinitely - can lose their status if they violate local laws for major and minor offences and violations.

Why is the bill controversial?

Opponents of the bill say it is exclusionary and violates the secular principles enshrined in the constitution. They say faith cannot be made a condition of citizenship.

The constitution prohibits religious discrimination against its citizens, and guarantees all persons equality before the law and equal protection of the law.

Delhi-based lawyer Gautam Bhatia says that by dividing alleged migrants into Muslims and non-Muslims, the bill "explicitly and blatantly seeks to enshrine religious discrimination into law, contrary to our long-standing, secular constitutional ethos".

Historian Mukul Kesavan says the bill is "couched in the language of refuge and seemingly directed at foreigners, but its main purpose is the delegitimisation of Muslims' citizenship".

Critics say that if it is genuinely aimed at protecting minorities, the bill should have have included Muslim religious minorities who have faced persecution in their own countries - Ahmadis in Pakistan and Rohingyas in Myanmar, for example. (The government has gone to the Supreme Court seeking to deport Rohingya refugees from India.)

Rohingya Muslim refugees protecting in India

Defending the bill, senior BJP leader Ram Madhav said, "no country in the world accepts illegal migration".

"For all others about whom the bleeding hearts are complaining, Indian citizenship laws are there. Naturalised citizenship is an option for others who legally claim Indian citizenship. All other illegal [immigrants] will be infiltrators," he added.

Also defending the bill earlier this year, R Jagannathan, editorial director of Swarajya magazine, wrote that "the exclusion of Muslims from the ambit of the bill's coverage flows from the obvious reality that the three countries are Islamist ones, either as stated in their own constitutions, or because of the actions of militant Islamists, who target the minorities for conversion or harassment".

What is the history of the bill?

The Citizen Amendment Bill was first put before parliament in July 2016.

The legislation cleared parliament's lower house where the BJP has a large majority, but it did not pass in the upper house, after violent anti-migrant protests in north-eastern India.

The protests were particularly vocal in Assam state, which in August saw two million residents left off a citizens' register. Illegal migration from Bangladesh has long been a concern in the state.

The CAB is seen as being linked to the register, although it is not the same thing.

The National Register of Citizens (NRC) is a list of people who can prove they came to the state by 24 March 1971, a day before neighbouring Bangladesh became an independent country.

Image captionThe government says the National Register of Citizens is needed to identify illegal migrants

In the run-up to its publication, the BJP had supported the NRC, but changed tack days before the final list was published, saying it was error-ridden.

The reason for that was a lot of Bengali Hindus - a strong voter base for the BJP - were also left out of the list, and would possibly become illegal immigrants.

How is the citizens' register linked to the bill?

The two are closely linked, because the Citizenship Amendment Bill will help protect non-Muslims who are excluded from the register and face the threat of deportation or internment.

This means tens of thousands of Bengali Hindu migrants who were not included in the NRC can still get citizenship to stay on in Assam state.

Later, Home Minister Amit Shah proposed a nationwide register of citizens to ensure that "each and every infiltrator is identified and expelled from India" by 2024.

"If the government goes ahead with its plan of implementing the nationwide NRC, then those who find themselves excluded from it will be divided into two categories: (predominantly) Muslims, who will now be deemed illegal migrants, and all others, who would have been deemed illegal migrants, but are now immunised by the Citizenship Amendment Bill if they can show that their country of origin is Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Pakistan," Mr Bhatia said.

Taken together, the NRC and CAB have the "potential of transforming India into a majoritarian polity with gradations of citizenship rights," said sociologist Niraja Gopal Jaya.

Friday, May 31, 2019

ANALYSIS: Asia markets fall after Trump announces Mexico tariffs

Date created : 31/05/2019 - 10:41 GMT/ZULU

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by Xian Wan and Biodun Iginla, France24 Financial Analysts

Asian stocks edged down Friday, despite modest gains on Wall Street overnight, as US President Donald Trump's sudden announcement of tariffs on all Mexican imports saw Tokyo shares drop.

Trump's Twitter announcement of a five percent tariff on all goods from Mexico starting June 10 sent shares in automakers with plants in the North American country falling sharply.

Trump said the duties would gradually increase until "illegal migrants" stop coming into the United States through Mexico.

Mexico's under-secretary for North American affairs called the move "disastrous" and vowed to retaliate.

The announcement saw shares in Japanese automakers plunge in early trade, with Honda dropping 3.75 percent to 2,665 yen, Mazda plummeting 6.25 percent to 1,071.5 yen, Nissan down 3.66 percent to 747.4 yen, and Toyota slipping 2.54 percent to 6,404 yen.

Tokyo's main index fell 0.8 percent, while Hong Kong edged down 0.2 percent. Singapore slipped 0.5 percent and Sydney was down 0.1 percent. Shanghai managed a 0.1 percent gain.

Coming amidst a protracted trade war between the United States and China, the latest tariffs announcement will do little to soothe investors' anxieties.

In recent days China and the US have ramped up their rhetoric, with Beijing accusing Washington of "naked economic terrorism" and Trump dismissing the Asian superpower as "a very weakened nation".

The two sides have not set a date for negotiations to resume in the row that has seen Washington and Beijing slap tit-for-tat tariffs on imports, while Trump's decision to blacklist Chinese telecom giant Huawei earlier this month has added a new dimension to the fractious relationship.

"Markets are getting nervous that we may not see anything constructive on the trade front until the June 28-29th G20 summit, where President Trump and his Chinese counterpart will meet on the sidelines", said OANDA senior market analyst Edward Moya.

"The longer the trade war lasts, the greater the global growth deterioration," he said.

Oil prices fell after a smaller-than-expected drop in US crude supplies, with new data showing US oil production at an all-time high.

"US production appears to be ramping up too quickly to allow inventories to come down much," Moya said.

"Gasoline inventories also posted a strong rise for a second consecutive week, despite the beginning of the summer driving season."

- Key figures around 0300 GMT -

Tokyo - Nikkei 225: DOWN 0.8 percent at 20,780.76 (break)

Hong Kong - Hang Seng: DOWN 0.2 percent at 27,053.87

Shanghai - Composite: DOWN 0.1 percent at 2,903.88

Pound/dollar: DOWN at $1.2611 from $1.2613 at 2100 GMT

Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1134 from $1.1130

Dollar/yen: DOWN at 109.22 yen from 109.61 yen

Oil - Brent Crude: DOWN 59 cents at $66.28 per barrel

Oil - West Texas Intermediate: DOWN 52 cents at $56.07 per barrel

New York - Dow: UP 0.2 percent at 25,169.88 (close)

London - FTSE 100: UP 0.5 percent at 7,218.16 (close)

Saturday, October 20, 2018

Thailand immigrant crackdown eyes 'dark-skinned people'

21 October 2018 - 09H51 GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Wang Yang and Biodun Iginla, France24, Bangkok

BANGKOK -

Allegedly aimed at busting visa abusers and illegal migrants, a Thai police operation called "X-Ray Outlaw Foreigner" has raised questions about racial profiling and fears for asylum-seekers caught in its web.

Tens of millions of tourists come to Thailand each year for the cheap living and postcard-perfect beaches, with some seeking out the seedier thrills of a bustling sex industry.

But as weak law enforcement, porous borders and corruption help make the country a hub for transnational crime, Thai authorities are intensifying Operation X-Ray -- a programme that started about a year ago -- with more than 1,000 people arrested in recent weeks, most for overstaying their visa.

Although the vast majority caught in the dragnet are migrants from nearby countries, the racial overtones of the campaign have sparked concerns about profiling based on skin colour.

"Our job is to classify who are the good dark-skinned people and who are the ones likely to commit crimes," said immigration bureau chief Surachate Hakparn.

He told us at France24 that the operation was aimed at weeding out visa overstayers and nabbing criminals -- especially "romance scammers" who lure lonely locals online to defraud them of cash.

He insisted that the romance scammers are often Nigerian or Ugandan.

- 'Suspicious targets' -

At the start of one night time operation witnessed by us at France24 in Bankok's rowdy Nana district earlier this month, about 75 Thai police officers stood in rows at a briefing.

"The suspicious targets are the dark-skinned people," shouted an officer. "First, we search their bodies, then we search their passports."

Soon they began stopping suspects, including three people from Mali who were tested for drugs on the spot.

By 11:55 pm, almost 30 individuals -- about half of whom were black -- had been rounded up.

Only one was Caucasian, a Frenchman caught smoking marijuana.

Surachate's staff said details on the breakdown of nationalities was "confidential".

But in the first two weeks of October, police arrested a Korean citizen wanted by Interpol for sexual assault, and busted a team of four Nigerians and 16 Thais allegedly involved in romance scams, according to authorities.

They also found a Laos national who had overstayed his visa by more than 11 years.

- Escaping persecution -

Thailand's reputation as a place to disappear and reinvent yourself combined with lax visa rules can be a headache for law enforcement.

The junta that seized power in 2014 justified its power grab by promising stability amid street protests and political upheaval.

But rights groups warn that refugees and asylum seekers who transit through Bangkok en route to a third country for resettlement are also being ensnared in the latest police operation as they lack legal protections.

According to rough estimates from the non-profit Fortify Rights, there are about 100 adults and 30 children who fit this description, mainly from Pakistan but also from Syria and Somalia.

"Thailand's immigration crackdown has swept up refugees and asylum seekers, sent young children into horrid, prison-like conditions, and appears to have clear aspects of racial profiling against South Asians and Africans," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

Thailand is not a party to the UN convention recognising refugees and made headlines in 2015 for deporting more than 100 Uighurs back to China.

More than 70 Pakistani Christians were rounded up and detained this month by police under charges of illegal entry and overstay even though they were assumed to be in transit and escaping religious persecution in their Muslim-majority homeland.

But the authorities remain unapologetic.

According to immigration chief Surachate's count, Thailand is home to more than 6,000 people who ought to have left the country already.

"In order to clean house, we need to bring in the good people and deport the bad people so that the country will have sustained stability," he said.