Over 100 Tamil migrants heading to Canada arrested

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Over 100 Tamil migrants heading to Canada arrested

OTTAWA, CANADA : Over 100 Tamil migrants on Friday were arrested by Thai authorities as they were allegedly heading to Canada, the Toronto Star newspaper reported.

Thai authorities informed that 114 Sri Lankans were detained for being illegal migrants as many of them did not have identification documents or possessed improper identification. Some of the detained are suspected to be members of the Tamil Tigers.

Canada's Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said that the arrests and the proposed legislation to combat human smuggling should discourage other migrants planning to illegally enter Canada.

"We understand that they detained over 100 illegal immigrants who apparently were planning on coming to Canada through a smuggling operation. We think this sends a strong message to the smugglers and their would-be customers that they should think twice," Kenney said.

Kenney did not disclose if Canadian agents were involved in the arrests but remarked the increased cooperation between Canada's law enforcement agencies and authorities in south Asia, especially in Thailand.

"We acknowledge that the best way to stop boats from arriving in Canada is to stop them from leaving the transit countries in the first place. So, local police action against illegal smuggling rings is essential. And for that reason we congratulate the Thai authorities for their alertness."

Canada has received thousands of Tamil refugees and many more had entered the country illegally. The government is proposing a legislation that would impose longer jail terms on human smugglers and smuggled migrants. The latter could receive up to a year in prison a five years on probation.

In August, a ship loaded with near 500 Sri Lankan migrants docked at a Canadian naval base in British Columbia. The vessel declared to have 490 refugees on board but Canada suspected some of them to be human smugglers and terrorists.

Canada, which is home to around 300,000 Tamils, has deemed the Tamil Tigers a terrorist group and will not accept members as migrants or refugees.

The Tamil Tiger rebels were defeated by the Sri Lankan army last year after more than two decades of conflict. The rebels were accused of using child soldiers, suicide bombers, and human shields. It labeled as a terrorist organization by many nations worldwide.

--BNO News

newkerala.com

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Minister Kenney and Minister Toews Issue Statement on Arrests in Thailand
Oct 29, 2010

OTTAWA, ONTARIO--The Honourable Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, and the Honourable Vic Toews, the Minister of Public Safety, issued the following statement on behalf of the Government of Canada:

"These arrests under Thai immigration laws are a reminder that human smuggling operators have also used Thailand as a transit country to target Canada's immigration system.

The Government of Canada is working closely with authorities in transit countries, such as Thailand, to detect and disrupt human smuggling operations before they reach Canada.

While we will not comment on specific operational practices, stronger cooperation with authorities in transit countries such as Thailand is part of the Government of Canada's overall strategy to prevent human smugglers from abusing Canada's immigration system.

These arrests are a reminder that the threat to our immigration system is real."

marketwire.com

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61 more Tamils arrested
30/10/2010

Thai authorities have arrested 61 Tamil migrants from Sri Lanka, police said Saturday, in the second such crackdown in recent weeks.

After a tip-off, 114 people were rounded up in the southern province of Songkhla on Thursday, but some were freed because they were able to present valid travel documents.

"The 61 were arrested and charged for overstaying their visas, illegal entry or not going through proper channels," said Colonel Phutthipong Musikkul, commander of Songkhla immigration police.

"It's likely that these people wanted to go to a third country," Phutthipong said, without elaborating.

Earlier this month Thai authorities said they were holding for possible deportation 128 Tamil migrants arrested in Bangkok, including some who had registered with the United Nations as asylum seekers.

Some reports suggested they hoped to travel to Canada, whose government welcomed news of their arrest.

Almost 500 Tamil refugees arrived in Canada in August aboard a cargo ship which reportedly spent 90 days traveling from Thailand before police boarded it in Canadian waters and piloted it ashore in western Canada.

Sri Lanka's crackdown on the Tamil Tigers, which ended a lengthy civil war last year, has resulted in a flood of people seeking asylum in other countries.

bangkokpost.com

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THEY started a war . got a million people killed , lost ,now they want to live in canada .
if they let them in it just encourages more seperatists movements and bloodshed
in other 3rd world countries ,as it seems thay win either way .
best just to blow up any refugee ships heading to the west.
sink the scum

[natalie8]

The Canadian government has always been generous with certain groups, giving them citizenship. Thank God I don't pay taxes there anymore.

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Sri Lankan Human Smuggling Worries Canada and Thailand
Neville de Silva
Thu, 2010-11-18

Almost 30 of the 50-odd Sri Lankan Tamils arrested by Thai police in Songkhla, the port town in the Gulf of Thailand, have been brought to Bangkok and are in the Immigration Detention Centre, awaiting deportation.

They had been arrested for violating Thai immigration laws such as overstaying their visas or for illegal entry.

Intelligence reports had suggested that they were congregating in Songkhla prior to boarding a ship for illicit entry to Canada.

Stung by the arrival of hundreds of Sri Lankan Tamil boat-people seeking refugee status, Canada and Thailand have agreed to co-operate to stem the tide and clamp down on human smugglers.

Canada’s Special Advisor on Human Smuggling and Illegal Migration, Ward Elcock, had talks early this month with Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya on how best to work together on the twin problems of people smuggling and human trafficking on which they share a common interest.

While Canada has been ‘invaded’ by some 550 Sri Lankan Tamil illicit migrants arriving in two ships in the past one year, Thailand has become both a transit and destination country.

The last boat “MV Sun Sea” carrying 492 Sri Lankans had left from Songkhla last June and fears of more Tamils being transported to the area led to Thai police raids that netted 114 of them.

Some 60-odd had been released as their visas were still valid for stay in Thailand though the suspicions were that they too had travelled to Songkhla to awaiting a vessel that would take them to Canada.

This was the second time in one month Thai police cracked down on Sri Lankans Tamils seeking to enter a third country as refugees, arresting in all 250 of them.

The police raids in Bangkok and Songkhla in the Gulf of Thailand followed earlier discussions with Australia and now Canada, both targeted by boatloads of asylum seekers, and intelligence that another illicit-run to Canada was imminent.

With human smuggling turning into a political hot potato, Ottawa has drafted new laws making it more difficult for asylum seekers to sink permanent roots in Canada, bring their families and imposing tough penalties on smugglers

Canada is are tightening up after talks with Australia, another favoured destination for asylum seekers which also hardened itsr procedures after more than 100 boat loads of would-be refugees tried to sneak in during the last couple of years.

After this month’s police raid in Songkhla Canada’s Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said that the Tamils were trying to sneak into Canada. Some had valid Thai tourist visas but there presence in Songkhla, an area hardly visited by Sri Lankan tourists, was a sign of their real intent.

Sri Lankans generally visit Thailand on two-month tourist visas obtained in Colombo. Rounding up of so many Sri Lankan Tamils in Songkhla inevitably meant they were there to be ferried to a ship preparing to head for Canada as most boats trying to breach Australia’s ‘cordon sanitaire’ start from or around Indonesia.

Several factors must worry Canada, home to some 200,000 Sri Lankan Tamils, the largest concentration outside Sri Lanka. While many found refuge after the anti-Tamil riots of July 1983 and the war that followed, the attempt to sneak into Canada large numbers of Sri Lankan Tamils, bypassing existing asylum procedures, is now turning into a lucrative business for human smugglers.

While there is an ongoing debate whether ‘crash landing’ in Canada does an injustice to those seeking migrant status by regular means, a major concern for Canada now is whether former combatants of the defeated Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the Sri Lankan terrorist group banned in Canada, and economic migrants are trying to creep in as genuine migrants.

Canada reiterates that they will accept genuine refugees and many who have qualified have settled in Canada and other western countries. Some had themselves been the victims of the Tigers and fled the country fearing LTTE retribution against them or their families.

Canada also needs to identify those behind this well orchestrated criminal operation, smashing it at source and ensuring that former LTTE terrorists are not admitted.

The first smuggling ship “Ocean Lady” that reached Canada in August 2009 was skippered by an LTTE activist Capt Kamalraj while the “Sun Sea” was skippered by Captain Vinod.

Both ran guns and other weaponry for the LTTE from North Korea according to the Singapore-based terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratne.

Running would-be migrants and drugs is one means of replenishing the coffers of the LTTE which was military smashed at home by the Sri Lankan forces, but a hardcore of Tamils abroad needs to keep the dream of an independent Tamil state alive and lobby internationally.

Canada’s multiple problems are compounded by the knowledge that several Tamils who have obtained temporary or permanent migrant status have returned to Sri Lanka for visits undermining their previous claims of a genuine fear of persecution and threat to life if returned to Sri Lanka.

Moreover the UNHCR reported last July an improved human rights and security situation in Sri Lanka. Later the UNHCR’s deputy in Sri Lanka Jennifer Pagonis said more refugees were returning and she expects the trend to continue.

Strict surveillance by the Sri Lankan navy has stopped the departure of boats that once ferried human cargo to Australia. Following intense naval patrolling the people smuggling operations have shifted to Southeast Asia, mainly Thailand.

This has implications for Thailand too. Songkhla where the Sri Lankan Tamils live awaiting a smuggler’s ship, is close enough to the Pattani -Yala region from which Thailand’s Malay Muslim insurgents are continuing attacks against security forces and civilians.

Southern Thailand has been an old stomping ground of LTTE gun-runners and other Tiger activists. Given the transnational character of modern terrorism some tie up under which LTTE expertise in guerrilla warfare and improvised ordnance is bartered for a temporary or a permanent safe haven could become an explosive mix.

So it would be in Thailand’s interest too to devise ways to put an end to the menace of human smuggling.

- Asian Tribune -

asiantribune.com

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well done thai police

[bobo746]

^ thank the lord they are heading somewhere else instead of here.

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Tamils fight for refugee status
April 30, 2012

BANGKOK, Thailand — All wars cause collateral damage. Vashni is collateral damage in Canada’s war on human smugglers.

The soft-spoken Tamil woman in her 30s lives one step ahead of the law in Thailand and longs to be reunited with her elderly parents in Toronto. But she would never consider resorting to using one of the notorious smugglers who operate out of Bangkok to make that happen.

“I don’t want to take that risk to myself,” she explains. “Why? It’s too dangerous and not safe.”

Vashni, whose identity is not being revealed to protect her safety, exists in stateless limbo. She and hundreds of other Sri Lankan Tamils are languishing in a shadowy netherworld within this teeming south Asian metropolis.

For the last two years, she’s struggled to stay one step ahead of a Thai government that considers her an illegal migrant. If she’s sent back to her native Sri Lanka, she faces torture, imprisonment and perhaps death.

Vashni has been swept up by the bitter aftermath of her homeland’s 26-year-civil war that ended three years ago with the Singhalese majority crushing Tamil separatists. In the 1990s, she was conscripted — against her will she maintains —into the rebel Tamil Tigers, a group Canada considers a terrorist group.

She and hundreds of her fellow Sri Lankan Tamil migrants here in Thailand have also been swept up in another Canadian-led battle: the major international law enforcement offensive targeting Thailand-based human trafficking crime rings.

Canada launched the ambitious international effort to prevent smugglers from reaching our shores. In 2009, the MV Ocean Lady brought 76 Tamil migrants to British Columbia, and the MV Sun Sea brought 492 a year later. Prime Minister Stephen Harper gave Thailand another $12 million to combat the smugglers during a visit here last month and his government introduced a tough new immigration bill that targets the gangs.

The much-touted legislation passed in the House of Commons on Friday and now goes to the Senate for quick, final approval.

The co-ordinated policing and political effort involving Canadians, Thais, Australians and others across the globe appears to have prevented another Ocean Lady or Sun Sea from reaching Canada’s west coast. Earlier this month, a Sri Lankan ringleader of the Bangkok smuggling network was arrested in France.

But there is a human cost associated with these law enforcement successes. Thailand doesn’t recognize international refugee law — it considers people like Vashni to be illegal migrants.

So they must apply to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for refugee status. If they are successful, then they wait for a third country to grant them residency — a process that can take years. If they are like Vashni, and have had their claims rejected by UNHCR, the waiting becomes interminable.

“Every month we go to the UNHCR to see the consultant. They say, you wait, you wait. How long do we have to wait without an answer?”

The latest UNHCR figures from March, obtained through a third party by The Canadian Press, show that 275 Sri Lankan Tamils have been granted refugee status, while another 142 have not. Aid agencies say more Tamils — nobody knows how many — haven’t bothered approaching UNHCR.

Phil Robertson, the Bangkok-based deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, says many Tamils are being sent back to Sri Lanka where they face grave harm from the predominantly Singhalese government.

Sri Lanka has been a politically charged issue for the Harper government. An estimated 300,000 Tamils in Canada represent their largest diaspora.

thechronicleherald.ca

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All wars cause collateral damage. Vashni is collateral damage in Canada’s war on human smugglers.

No she's suffering because her people started a civil war that killed 100s of thousands of people, and then lost it .

In the 1990s, she was conscripted — against her will she maintains —into the rebel Tamil Tigers

Just taking orders , I see

Canada, which is home to around 300,000 Tamils,

One is too many.
how long before they start screaming discrimination start demanding a homeland in Canada ?

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Minister Kenney and Minister Toews Issue Statement on Arrests in Thailand
Oct 29, 2010



These arrests are a reminder that the threat to our immigration system is real."

marketwire.com

Yeah right.

Canada has some of the most socialist immigration policies out there.

Where is Adres Brievick when you need him..