KUALA LUMPUR, July 23 (Reuters) – Malaysia has asked the U.N. refugee agency to temporarily stop registering new refugees in the country, as it builds a domestic system to manage asylum-seekers, the foreign ministry said on Thursday.
Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Lukanisman Awang Sauni said the suspension would enable the government to implement its own refugee registration programme, known as the DPP, which it launched in January.
“Through the DPP, the government can manage data in a more structured manner, including in identity verification, monitoring and regulation, without relying entirely on the records of any foreign entity,” he told parliament’s upper house, in response to questions from senators on Malaysia’s efforts to manage Rohingya refugees.
According to the UNHCR, there were about 215,600 refugees and asylum-seekers registered with the agency in Malaysia at the end of February, more than half of them ethnic Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar. The country is not a signatory to the 1951 U.N. refugee convention and refugees are not allowed to work or get an education.
There has been a rise in online hate speech and misinformation targeting the Rohingya in recent weeks, with social media users accusing them of taking jobs and land away from Malaysians.
The move to halt registrations would allow the UNHCR to focus on re-settling refugees in third countries, if they cannot be repatriated to their home nations, Lukanisman said, adding that authorities would continue to engage and cooperate with the agency regularly.
The Malaysian office of UNHCR did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The agency said on its website that Malaysia’s refugee policies, including the DPP programme, “reflect an important step towards a structured, predictable, and nationally owned approach to protecting people forced to flee their country” and that UNHCR’s work was “complementary to and in support of the state’s protection and humanitarian responsibilities.”
Lukanisman said plans were also underway to deport approximately 5,000 Myanmar nationals detained in the country’s immigration detention centres by naval vessels, subject to Myanmar’s agreement. He did not provide further details.
In 2021, Malaysia deported more than 1,000 Myanmar nationals by ship, despite a court-ordered halt and rights groups saying the repatriation exercise had included asylum-seekers and UNHCR-registered refugees.
The military seized control of Myanmar in a coup in February 2021, plunging the country into civil war. Myanmar does not recognise the Rohingya as citizens.
(Reporting by Rozanna Latiff; Editing by Kate Mayberry)
