PUTRAJAYA should grant Syrian national Hassan Al Kontar, who lived at the airport for nearly eight months, refugee status as he is an asylum seeker, said the Bar Council’s committee on refugees.

The government should facilitate his repatriation to a third country for settlement even though he declined to stay in Malaysia, said M. Ramachelvam who heads the Bar’s Migrants, Refugees and Immigration Affairs Committee (MRIAC).

“The first step is that he should accept asylum while waiting for his resettlement.

“However, the right to grant refugee status is with the Canadian authorities.

“If the Canadians are willing, then we could send him there,” the MRIAC chairman said on the sidelines of the National Consultation on a Comprehensive Policy Framework for Migrant Workers in Kuala Lumpur today.

Hassan, 37, who has been living at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 (klia2) since March was arrested two weeks ago and will be deported to his home country in two days.

Deputy Home Minister Mohd Azis Jamman said the move had to be taken after Hassan rejected offers to live in several Asean countries willing to accept him as he only wanted to live in Canada.

However, Canadian authorities said he could only enter the country two years from now.

Hassan has more than 12,000 Facebook followers who read his regular postings of living in the airport where he sleeps on chairs, showers in toilets and gets fed by airline staff.

He refuses to return to Syria where he fears being enlisted in the army.

Amnesty International Malaysia has warned that Hassan’s life would be in “extreme danger” if he was deported back to Syria.

Ramachelvam said Hassan has a Canadian lawyer representing him. 

“The Canadian (High Commission) is also liaising with him. 

“The UNCHR has (intervened) and now the Canadian mission is in the process of looking into it.”

Ramachelvam said Hassan should accept asylum in Malaysia as in the case of the 11 Uighurs whom Malaysia released and sent to Turkey recently, despite China’s request to repatriate them.

“A similar arrangement can be done for Hassan. The Bar Council commends the new government as opposed to the previous government for not succumbing to political pressure and for living up to higher standards of human rights.” – October 17, 2018.