Right of asylum seekers ignored

Many asylum seekers have been held for several years at the detention centers with no judicial review to justify the detention, thus prompting claims that human rights of these detainees have been ignored.

Human rights activists, lawyers and the UN have pushed for the Korean government to amend the refugee laws there so that unnecessarily prolonged detention of asylum seekers can be prevented by judges.

Under the refugee law over there, the immigration office has the sole right to decide whether or not to extend the confinement of asylum seekers.

Lawyer Kim Jong-chul said that the constitution bans arbitrary detention, without considering the legal status of anyone, which means that any detention without a judicial review can be seen as arbitrary detention. The lawyer said that under the existing law, the immigration office owns the sole right to detain asylum seekers as long as it wants to, without any need of any court intervention.

For example, an Iranian there has been detained for a period of three years, which is the longest detention according to the human rights activists.

He arrived here in the year 2005 and at the end of the year he was taken to a detention center after being convicted on charges that he had taken drugs.

He applied for refugee status and claimed that his conversion to Christianity will put his life in danger if he returned to his hometown which is predominantly Muslim. In 2006, the immigration office rejected his application. In response to this, he filed a lawsuit, but to no avail, as he failed in both provincial and appellate courts. Now the case is pending at the Supreme Court.

Since 2007, a broadly upgraded law on detention has been in force, which will allow those detained at civilian hospitals or welfare facilities to ask for a review on whether their detention should be continued or not. The current immigration law is apparently infringing upon the human rights of foreigners, said a senior judge in the Seoul Central District Court.

In contrast to policies there, detention of asylum seekers is tightly restricted and is subject to court reviews in Canada and United States.

Under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act of Canada, asylum seekers can be detained, but once detained, the Immigration and Refugee Board must review the requirement of the detention within 48 hours of detention.

In 2001, the US Supreme Court ruled that asylum seekers cannot be detained by the immigration office for more than sex months.