By JOSIE CLARKE
Immigration Minister Lianne Dalziel has promised to look into the case of hundreds of Chinese Indonesians seeking refugee status in New Zealand.
The minister has asked the Immigration Service for a report on the group, many of whom fled to New Zealand between May and October 1998, following attacks by Indonesian Muslims.
Immigration has so far processed 80 of the refuge-seekers' applications to stay in New Zealand, but has declined them all because it says Indonesia is now safe enough for them to return.
Members of the group have asked Ms Dalziel for a reprieve, arguing that if the Immigration Service had processed their applications within four months of the May 1998 riots they would probably have been allowed to stay.
They have also asked to be treated as one group, similar to Chinese who fled to New Zealand after the Tiananmen Square massacre.
National's spokeswoman on immigration, Marie Hasler, who spoke at a public meeting on the issue on Thursday night, said the group should be allowed to stay. "There seems to be ongoing discrimination in Indonesia. I will certainly be supporting their case."
The National MP for Epsom, Richard Worth, who also spoke at the meeting, said: "The consequences of sending them back to the cauldron from which they came are disastrous."
Immigration Service spokesman Ian Smith said the service had received about 550 applications from Indonesians applying for refugee status between May and November 1998. Many of them would have been Chinese.
Apart from the 80 declined so far, another 25 left New Zealand before their applications were heard, 19 withdrew and 12 did not show up for interviews.
The service had considered each of the 80 individuals' applications separately to weigh up whether they were "bona fide" refugees as defined by the United Nations.
Letters from the Refugee Status Appeals Authority to those declined refugee status said there had been a "marked lack of violence or unrest" directed at ethnic Chinese in Jakarta since the May 1998 riots.
Mr Smith said refugees had to prove their fears were well-founded.
"You can't overlook that 25 of these people went home voluntarily. Why would they have done that if they were scared?"
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