Cuban hunger strikers granted asylum
Published on April 3, 2013
By Caribbean News Now contributor
PROVIDENCIALES, Turks and Caicos Islands -- Just days after photographs
of four Cuban refugees detained in the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI)
appeared in the media with their mouths sewn up as part of a hunger
strike protest, three of the four have been granted asylum, along with a
Colombian national.
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Immigration Minister Don-Hue Gardiner
However, according to Minister of Immigration Don-Hue Gardiner, this is
not as a result of their protest.
Gardiner said that he received a response from the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on the asylum applications of five of
the detainees.
"As a result of those reports the ministry of border control has made a
decision to grant asylum following the recommendation of the UNHCR to
three of the Cubans. Those three together with a national of Colombia
were granted asylum, refugee status," Gardiner said.
They were accordingly granted leave to enter the TCI and also permission
to work in the territory.
Two other detainees who were refused asylum may appeal the refusals to
the UNHCR.
Gardiner was at pains to emphasise that the asylum requests were not
approved because of the Cubans' hunger strike protest.
He said, "The TCI government does not lend itself to be swayed by those
kinds of activities; we look to the facts that we've been given and we
take the decision based on those facts. It is coincidental only that the
reports from the UNHCR were received on the same day of last Friday
before these actions, and so they are in no way as a result of these
actions."
http://www.caribbeannewsnow.com/topstory-Cuban-hunger-strikers-granted-asylum-15213.html
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