Sunday, August 19, 2007

With MFI this afternoon

This was a meeting to discuss the plight of 62 members of the Mehdi Foundation International, held in Tihar Jail, New Delhi, on charges of destroying their travel documents. They had travelled from Pakistan to seek asylum, because they are liable to prosecution for their religious beliefs under Pakistan's notorious blasphemy law. The Indians had undertaken to return them on their Independence Day, August 13, but they hadn't yet been tried. India isn't a signatory of the Refugee Convention, but under customary international law it is wrong to send a person back to a country where he is likely to face persecution.

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