All these three criteria are apparently applicable to the Biharis in Bangladesh. However, according to the cessation clauses of the 1951 Convention and the UNHCR Statutes of 1950, a person shall stop being a refugee if, among others: (1) h/she has voluntarily re-established him/herself in the country which h/she left or outside which h/she remained owing to fear of persecution, The case of the Bihari Muslims is convered by this clause. Because, firstly, they voluntarily migrated to East Pakistan in 1947 from India; and secondly, in Pakistan they enjoyed protection by the state and were full-fledged citizens after 195110 according to Section 3(d) of the Pakistan Citizenship Act, which reads: At the commencement of this Act every person shall be deemed to be a citizen of Pakistan who before the commencement of this Act migrated to the territories now included in Pakistan from any territory in the Indo-Pakistan sub-continent outside those territories with the intention of residing permanently in those territories. Therefore, the case of the Biharis was not considered a refugee situation after the partition of 1947, as they were rehabilitated and naturalized in their newly demarcated territories. The question of the Biharis’ becoming “refugees” had arisen once Bangladesh became separate from Pakistan. All of a sudden these people became stateless as they identified themselves as Pakistanis. But on the one hand, they were not refugees as they were not displaced from their place of residence, and on the other hand, they were stranded outside of their country where their status remained unrecognized. These complexities have given rendered the Biharis in Bangladesh a peculiar status, which can be called “artificial minority.” The term “artificial minority” requires an elaboration on the concept of minority first. The term “minority” is defined in a number of ways. According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, a minority is an ethnic, religious, or other group having a distinctive presence with little power or representation relative to other groups within a society.11 In municipal and international legal systems, “minority” denotes a particular meaning. The term “minority” was first legally defined by the Sub Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities in 1977 in Article 27 of International Covenant of Civil & Political Rights (ICCPR) of 1966. The article notes: Minorities are considered to be a group numerically inferior to the rest of the population of the state, in a non-dominant position, whose members being citizens of a state, possess ethnic beliefs or linguistic characteristics differing from the rest of the population and show if only implicitly, a sense of solidarity directly towards preserving their culture, traditions, religions or language.12 According to this definition, the protection of minorities is linked to the criteria of citizenship/nationality, which is usually supported by legal definitions in charters and covenants. According to the Council of European Commission for Democracy Through Law (CDL) a minority is: A group which is smaller in number than the rest of the population of a State, whose members have ethnic, religious or linguistic features different from those of the rest of the population, and are guided, if only implicitly, by the will to safeguard their
Posted on: Fri, 07 Jun 2013 18:47:08 +0000