The UNHCR office has been handling scores of requests for refugee status and asylum to third countries since the Indonesian military imposed martial rule in Aceh on May 19. Since then, military operations have, rights groups say, have killed over 1,000 civilians and displaced 46, 000 people.

Because of the large number of applications, the UNHCR office has reserved Tuesdays to handle applications from Acehnese to interview, reject or confirm and issue them refugee papers.

But when more than 600 Acehnese arrived on Aug. 19, they found neither shelter nor protection but police waiting for them.

The police, who treat Acehnese as undocumented immigrants, had mounted roadblocks on all roads leading to the office, stopped and checked vehicles and arrested 232 Acehnese.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the UNHCR office closed its offices because of heavy police presence outside their premises - Malaysian police said they would arrest any undocumen! ted migrant who might turn up.

''If foreigners are found without valid entry permits, they will be sent back. This is the law of the country,'' the 'Malay Mail' afternoon daily quoted Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi as saying.

When they blocked access to the UNHCR Tuesday, the police did not apprehend Acehnese who had refugee papers and blue coloured cards signifying that third countries had accepted them as asylum seekers. But the police action drew heavy criticism from lawyers, opposition leaders and rights groups who have long demanded that the government recognise fleeing Acehnese as refugees and not as undocumented immigrants.

''For some Acehnese, deportation to Aceh virtually amounts to passing a death sentence,'' human rights lawyer Amer Hamzah Arshad told IPS. ''The government can and must give shelter to Acehnese while they wait for relocation to third countries.''

Arshad, who often represents Acehnese in court, said Tuesday's acti! on smacks of double standards compared to the help the Malaysian government has given to many other displaced people around the world. ''More than any legal principles, it is a basic act of human decency not to send Acehnese back to a place of persecution,'' S Arulchelvam of the rights group Suaram said in an interview. District police chief Zul Hasnan Najib Baharuddin said the arrested Acehnese are being detained at an immigrant holding camp and would be deported. Among them are 12 women and children.

It is not clear whether they will be charged in court. But if this is the case, they face stiff jail terms and whipping under new laws approved last year to discourage the entry of undocumented migrant workers.

The police action, sudden and inexplicable, puts the spotlight on Malaysia's conflicting policy toward Aceh, a province that has a long history of resistance to colonialism and deep cultural and historical ties with Malaysia because of their proximity.

Th! ere are many Acehnese settlements along the west coast of peninsular Malaysia and several prominent individuals, including actors, politicians and writers, are of Acehnese descent.

The UNHCR urged police to release the detained Acehnese. ''We urge the Malaysian government to grant temporary protection to those fleeing the conflict in Aceh and ensure they are treated in accordance with international standards,'' a UNHCR statement said.

In closing the UNHCR offices, ''we cannot operate with the police present and deterring people from approaching our office,'' the agency's refugee eligibility coordinator Evan Ruth said.

At the core of the issue is Malaysia's refusal to ratify the 1951 U.N. Convention on Refugees that grants displaced people rights, protection and shelter and asylum.

Lawyer Amer, who has studied the problem in relation to the Acehnese, says that since the country feels it is not bound by the U.N. convention and does not have its own law! on refugees, Malaysia applies on refugees its various laws on immigration.

''The immigration laws do not recognise a refugee or make a distinction between a refugee and an illegal migrant,'' Amer said. ''Without recognition, a refugee is considered an undocumented immigrant and suffers harsh and arbitrary penalties.''

A person without a valid entry permit is liable to be fined 10,000 ringgit (2,600 U.S. dollars), jailed for five years and whipped six times.

Punishing refugees as undocumented immigrants contravenes Article 31 of the UNHCR Convention, which prevents signatories from punishing those fleeing conflicts or persecution.

''The immigration laws not only punish the refugee for arriving without valid papers but allows the authorities to deport the refugee from where he or she fled from,'' Amer said.

In one such deportation exercise in 1996 that badly went wrong, several policemen and Acehnese were killed and hundreds forcibly send ! to Aceh by Indonesian ships. Reports later emerged that some of the deported Acehnese were jailed and tortured and others simply disappeared.

''During the U.S. war on Iraq, the government mobilised thousands of people to decry the U.S. aggression. Today there is aggression right next door and not a single protest is heard from the people who lecture the world on morals and humanity,'' Arulchelvam added.

”Farms are burning, schools are fired and civilians killed everyday, and all these is happening right next door to Malaysia,'' added Yin Shao Loong of the Solidarity for Aceh, a rights NGO, in a statement.

Yet over the years, Malaysia has sheltered thousands of displaced people from countries like Bosnia, Iraq, India, Africa and from South-east Asia, including Moro refugees from the Philippines in Sabah state.

Government officials have often privately said that Malaysia's refusal to ratify the U.N. convention is partly prompted by fears that refugees ! from countries like the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam that have perennial refugee problems - would swamp the country.

A senior government official, who requested anonymity, said Malaysia is a small nation with porous borders in a region with potentially explosive refugee problems.

''Like the Vietnamese boat people -- anybody in the region just have to take a boat and in a matter of hours they would reach our shores,'' he said. ''We don't want to open the floodgates, that would overwhelm the nation.'' (END/2003)