00:00How have the risks increased for Burmese nationals living in Taiwan to be deported back to Myanmar right now?
00:06Because of the Jantra's announcement of ending the emergency status on the 31st of July,
00:16the Immigration Agency and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is conducting an investigation collectively to reassess the situation in Myanmar.
00:24If they came to the conclusion that the situation hasn't been improved, they will give out more general orders from the officers saying that the practice of extending anti-humanitarian concerns should not be a general rule.
00:40And they should proceed with the repatriation of those who have been staying in Taiwan because of those previous extensions.
00:50So right now, there are about 4,000 Burmese nationals living in Taiwan, and most of them are students.
00:56What risks do students face when they go back to Myanmar?
01:00The three main dangers that face is that some came from regions that armed conflict has been particularly high, even compared to other regions.
01:09So we have a lot of asylum seekers from Saigon, from Rakhine State, or like Chang State, Chin State, which is like the focus of the Jantra's airstrikes.
01:19So this is one of the main dangers.
01:23Another is that there are also people who have engaged in political activities very actively, and then because of their activities, some of them have already been issued a court order.
01:35And there are also students who have been staying under the student visa in Taiwan when the coup happened.
01:43But they have been participating in solidarity events in Taiwan, assemblies, and also posting those informations online.
01:57So the immigration agency handles these asylum cases and visa extensions on a case-by-case basis.
02:04How exactly do they assess the risk that somebody might face back in Myanmar?
02:10If they submit some sort of evidence or just like a news report of what their hometown has been put under,
02:20immigration will accept for consideration their pleas and extend their visas or postpone their deportation.
02:31But now they are like reassessing both the ones that have been cleaned for like humanitarian conservation and also for like ongoing, for like future cases.
02:41The immigration agency will probably will be adopting a stricter review of those.
02:49I just want to add that the immigration agency will usually give out statements saying that for those that they have determined that they will be a stricter of arbitrary deprivation of life and subject to torture if returned.
03:01When they say that they have never deported anyone who has been identified as such, that should be taken in consideration that they have never explicitly acknowledged anyone or explicitly identified anyone as such.
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