Political Repression, Ethnic Conflict and Refugees

Every year, hundreds of thousands people are leaving their countries. Being different from normal immigrants, these people are actually forced to leave their homeland. The reasons vary but have one thing in common: they fear to go back. They are called refugees. The practice of granting asylum to people fleeing persecution in foreign lands is one of the earliest hallmarks of civilization. References to it have been found in texts written 3,500 years ago. According to the International Refugee Law, refugee refers to the people who outside his or her country of origin, unable or unwilling to avail him or herself of the protection of that country or to return there for fear of persecution because of his or her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion. (Jastram, 2001) What make them leave their own countries and being refugees? How to resolve these refugee problems?

Actually, not all the people who are forced to leave their countries due to the reasons stated above are regarded as refugees. The term of Asylum Seeker is different with Refugee. Asylum Seeker is defined as a person who has left their country of origin and applied for recognition as a refugee in another country, but is still awaiting a decision on their application. (RefugeeCouncil, 2011) When the people are forced to leave their own countries and immigrant to another one like United States, they are referred to as Asylum seekers until their requests for refuge have been accepted. It usually takes time to precede the recognition of asylum seeker’s protection need, however, after which he or she is officially recognized as a refugee. According to the data in 2011, United State held the largest number of Asylum seekers and Refugees: 63,803 registered Asylum Seekers and 275,461 refugees. (UNHCR, 2011) The rights to determine whether a person is a refugee or not are reserved by a certain agency in the host country. If an asylum seeker does not meet the refugee reorganization standard which varies from country to country, he or she might be recognized as illegal migrants. Some host countries often deport the failed asylum applicants after detentions, as in the United Kingdom.

The underlying facts that cause refugees vary depend on region. The two causes that I would like to describe here are Political repression and ethnic conflict. In the term of political repression, it refers to the prosecution of certain political system that harms a certain group of nationalities.