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Liberia: Ghanaian Govt Taken to Court Over Detained Refugees
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The NEWS (Monrovia)
27 March 2008
Posted to the web 27 March 2008
Monrovia
Liberian refugees may have suspended their protest action, but the ill-treatment meted against them has become an issue amidst reports that a coalition of human rights organizations has taken the Ghanaian government to court.
According to IRIN, the human rights organizations sued the Ghanaian government for gross violations of the rights of Liberian refugees in reaction to the simmering stand-off over repatriations.
Edward Amuzu, head of the Ghana legal resources centre said the Ghanaian government forced deportation and detention of refugees without recourse to the due process is a blatant violation of the rules of natural justice.
The Human Rights Coalition is filing a suit on behalf of one of the detained refugees, Chucider Lawrence, asking the Ghanaian government to release her and provide justification for her arrest and detention.
"We want to test the law with this case and depending on the outcome we will proceed with a general suit to compel the government to answer to the gross human rights abuses of the [all the detained] refugees," Amuzu said.
Under Ghanaian law no one can be detained for more than 48 hours without being arraigned.
The Ghanaian government has justified its action, saying the refugees have violated laws by protesting to the police without notice.
"Further deportations have not been discarded," said Ghana Deputy Information Minister, Frank Agyekum. However, he also said deportations have been suspended pending the outcome of diplomatic discussions with the Liberian government.
Agyekum said the government is basing its right to deport the refugees on a 1951 Refugee Convention clause which states that when conditions have improved in a refugee's country of origin, the host government is no longer obliged to host them.
Minister of State in the Interior Ministry, Nana Obiri Boahen, told IRIN that the government welcomes the law suit and will respond appropriately.
Meanwhile, a Liberian government delegation on Tuesday held talks with Ghanaian Ministers of Interior, Foreign Affairs and high-ranking national security officials in Accra, Ghana.
The delegation also held diplomatic talks with the Ghanaian President John Kuffor on Wednesday in an attempt to resolve the stand-off.
Notwithstanding, according to Agyekum, so far the meetings ended inconclusively. But he added, Liberian and Ghanaian delegations are resolved to reach conclusions that are mutually beneficial.
Some 630 refugees, mostly women and children, are being detained at a camp in the Eastern Region of Ghana and are under heavy police guard following their arrest by the Ministry of Interior on 17 March. Of these refugees, 16 have already been stripped of their refugee status and deported to Liberia.
The refugees were arrested for holding a one-month protest to draw attention to what they said were unfair condition under which they would be repatriated.
In early March, 500 of the refugees delivered a petition with three demands to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the Ghana Refugee Board, saying they did not want to be integrated into Ghanaian society.
Instead, they demanded to be resettled in a third country, preferably in Europe. They also said they would return to Liberia but only if they were provided with US$1,000 each, ten times the amount UNHCR is offering.
The UN refugee agency said it hopes to convince Ghana to find alternative solutions to deportation.
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"We are not very pleased with the way things are right now," spokeswoman for UNHCR Needa Jehu Hoya told IRIN in Accra.
UNHCR is doing all it can to ensure the rights of the refugees are protected, she said, adding that 13 of the deported refugees were legally registered with the UNHCR.
Some 40,000 Liberian refugees still live in Ghana, according to the Ghana Refugee Board, most of them live in Buduburam camp in Central Region, 60 km west of the capital Accra. The rest live in the Krisan camp in Ghana's Western Region.
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