Background Checks Violate Refugees’ Rights, UNHCR Says
By Amanda Roberson, Tico Times Staff
Recent plans by Colombian and Costa Rican authorities to check the criminal records of approximately 10,000 Colombians refugees living in Colombia violate international norms for respecting their rights, said the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Sunday in a full-page ad in the daily La Nación.
Upon returning from a visit to Colombia earlier this month, Public Security Minister Fernando Berrocal announced that Costa Rican and Colombian officials would go through a list of names of Colombians living in Costa Rica, a decision inspired by the arrest of a Colombian guerrilla with Costa Rican residency accused of coordinating arms and drug trafficking through Costa Rica (TT, Sept. 15).
Since Berrocal made this declaration, the High Commissioner has requested a meeting with him to explain the organization’s concerns, but these requests have been denied by the Public Security Ministry, said UNHCR spokesman Geovanni Monge.
Given this lack of response, UNHCR decided to publish its concerns in La Nación, he said.
“What worries us is the establishment of a link between refugees and delinquency,†Monge said.
The La Nación ad points out that Costa Rica has always been “internationally recognized for its long tradition of asylum for refugees from Colombia and other countries.â€
The current measures announced by Berrocal break with this tradition, Monge said. In particular, sharing information about refugees’ backgrounds violates their right to confidentiality set forth in the International Human Rights Treaty, which Costa Rica ratified in 1977, he said.
This breach of confidentiality could be dangerous to refugees and their families living in Colombia, Monge said.
Checking refugees’ criminal records retroactively is also unnecessary, Monge said, since they had to have “satisfactorily met requirements†to get refugee status in the first place, he said.
However, Immigration Director Mario Zamora recently pointed out flaws in the system of granting refugee status that allow for the acceptance of false documents, creating uncertainty over whether those given refugee status have clean criminal histories (TT, Sept. 15).