There are no complaints from refugees about the Committee for migration under the labor and social protection ministry, the ministry’s sources say.

From 2010 year-start a special law “On refugees” is in effect, providing for registration and documentation in authorized bodies of the Committee for migration. On the agreement between Kazakhstan foreign ministry and UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) the asylum-seekers and mandated refugees earlier registered in the UNHCR office in RK were referred to the committee’s department for migration in Almaty.

From 4 May current year the department got down to re-registration and issuance of the documents legalizing these individuals’ status.

By-date 114 families have been re-registered (336 people) on UNHCR list. 10 families, 22 separate individuals, 6 asylum-seeking families and 10 individual asylum-seekers have not applied for registration and their whereabouts are not yet ascertained.

This June, in a special “Migrant” operation the enforcement bodies detained 29 individuals, 28 of whom are duly registered as asylum-seekers. The decision-making procedure on these detainees applying for a refugee status is yet to be completed in RK, and harmonized with the international rights organizations. The visiting committee with these organizations’ representatives ascertained that the detainees are in custody of the Almaty detention center (PTDC) in satisfactory conditions and did not complain so far.

It also expires that some applications for asylum are groundless, only to get a residence permit for a certain term. Many of the asylum seekers have no IDs, but they undergo registration in the interior department in compliance with the law.

The procedure of studying applications is transparent and open both for rights protection organizations and media.

Stepan Lemeshev