Open Letter: Urgent Appeal to Address UNHCR India’s Irresponsible Actions and Breach of Duty Toward Refugees, Including Myanmar Asylum Seekers in India

Open Letter

Urgent Appeal to Address UNHCR India’s Irresponsible Actions and Breach of Duty Toward Refugees, Including Myanmar Asylum Seekers in India

From the people of Myanmar and Civil Society  Organizations

To:
Mr. Filippo Grandi
High Commissioner
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
UNHCR Headquarters
Case Postal 2500
CH-1211 Genève 2 Dépôt, Switzerland

Date: July 4, 2025

Your Excellency,

1. Following the military coup in Myanmar on February 1, 2021, over 10,000 Myanmar nationals sought refuge in India and registered as refugees with UNHCR India, requesting protection[1]. Among them are political activists, human rights defenders, and other individuals at particular risk who have been targeted by the Myanmar military junta.
2. However, it is extremely alarming that UNHCR India has transferred refugees’ confidential personal data to the Indian government without adequate safeguards. This reckless action has severely endangered the lives and safety of refugees, leading to the following consequences:

(a) Using information obtained from UNHCR, the Indian government has arrested over 261 Myanmar nationals under the Foreigners Act. Among them, six women gave birth in detention, and two men died in custody. Most shockingly, around 134 individuals were forcibly deported back to Myanmar, directly violating the principle of non-refoulement under international law. Of those deported, 34 (including 20 women and 7 children) remain detained by the junta, while 125 others, despite completing prison sentences, continue to be held in foreign detention centres.

(b) On May 6, 2025, Indian authorities arrested 40 Rohingya refugees from their homes and forcibly returned them to Myanmar[2]—an operation made possible due to UNHCR India’s data sharing. This systematic targeting has instilled fear among Rohingya refugees, forcing many into homelessness and displacement.

(c) Since June 13, 2025, Indian authorities, relying on UNHCR India’s data, have been raiding the homes of Myanmar political activists, summoning them to the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO), restricting their movement outside Delhi, and prohibiting them from changing residences. These actions have caused severe psychological distress and insecurity among activists who sought UNHCR’s protection after fleeing persecution in Myanmar.

(d) Despite repeated pleas for help via emails and calls, refugees facing these threats have received no response, assistance, or protection from UNHCR India or its partner organization, the Socio-Legal Information Centre (SLIC). This demonstrates UNHCR India’s complete lack of accountability toward refugees.

3. We view these actions asgrave violations of refugee conventions and UNHCR’s own principles, including confidentiality, duty of care, and non-refoulement.
4. Therefore, we respectfully urge Your Excellency to takeimmediate action on the following:

(a) Halt UNHCR India’s unsafe data-sharing practices and ensure full protection of refugees’ personal information.

(b) Conduct a swift and thorough investigation into those responsible for these breaches and hold them accountable.

(c) Urgently address the safety and challenges faced by Myanmar political activists and refugees registered with UNHCR India.

5. UNHCR is thelast hope for refugees. We earnestly expect Your Excellency to act without delay to uphold this trust and protect refugees’ lives.

Respectfully yours,

Myanmar Refugees and Activists in India

For further information, please contact:

1. India for Myanmar – india4myanmar@protonmail.com
2. Blood Money Campaign – bloodmoneycampaign21@gmail.com
3. Sisters 2 Sisters – sisters2sisters@protonmail.com

This open letter has been signed by a total of 141 civil society organizations, including five anonymous civil society groups who wish to remain unnamed.

1. 5/ of Zaya State Strike
2. Action Committee for Democracy Development_ACDD
3. Action Committee of Basic Education Students (ACBES)
4. All Aung Myay Thar San Schools Strike Force
5. All Burma Federation of Student Unions (Monywa District)
6. Alliance of Students’ Union – Yangon (ASU-Yangon)
7. Anti-Junta Alliance Yangon-AJAY
8. Anti-junta Forces Coordination Committee (AFCC – Mandalay)
9. ASR-ASSOCIATION of SPRING RAINBOW
10. A-Yar-Taw People Strike
11. AWDO ဧရာဝတီမြစ်အနောက်ဖက်ဖွံ့ဖြိုးတိုးတက်ရေးအင်အားစု၊ မကွေတိုင်း။
12. AWDO ငဖဲ။
13. Basic Education General Strike Committee (BEGSC)
14. Basic Education Worker Unions – Steering Committee (BEWU-SC)
15. Blood Money Campaign
16. CAN-Myanmar
17. CDM Medical Network (CDMMN)
18. Chanmyatharzi Township People’s Strike
19. Chaung Oo Township Youth Strike Committee
20. Chindwin (West) Villages Women Strike
21. Civil Information Network (CIN)
22. Civil Society Organizations Coordination Committee (Monywa)
23. Coalition Strike Committee – Dawei
24. Co-operative University Mandalay Students’ Strike
25. Daung Sitthe Strike
26. Dawei (Ashaetaw) Women Strike
27. Dawei Youths Revolutionary Movement Strike Committee
28. Defend Myanmar Democracy
29. Depayin Township Revolution Steering Committee
30. Depayin Women Strike
31. D@D Network
32. Ethnic Youth General Strike Committee (Mandalay)
33. Federal Corner
34. Free Rohingya Coalition (FRC)
35. Gangaw Women Strike
36. General Strike Collaboration Committee (GSCC)
37. General Strike Committee of Basic and Higher Education (GSCBHE)
38. General Strike Coordination Body (GSCB)
39. Generations’ Solidarity Coalition of Nationalities – GSCN
40. GGWDO ဂန့်ဂေါဖွံ့ဖြိုးတိုးတက်ရေးအဖွဲ့။
41. Human Rights Program (New Myanmar Foundation)
42. Industries Strike
43. India For Myanmar
44. Interim University Council Mandalar University
45. Justice and Equality Focus
46. Justice For Myanmar
47. Justice Movement for Community-Innlay
48. Kachin Student Union
49. Kalay Township Strike Force
50. Kalay Women Strike
51. Kayaw women association
52. Kyain Seikgyi Spring Revolution Leading Committee
53. Kyauktada Strike Committee (KSC)
54. La Communauté Birmane de France
55. Latpadaung Region Strike Committee
56. Let’s Help Each Other (LHEO)
57. LGBT Alliance
58. LGBT Alliance Myanmar (Kalay Region)
59. LGBT Alliance Myanmar (Kyaukse Region)
60. LGBT Community Yangon
61. LGBT Union – Mandalay
62. MATA စစ်ကိုင်းတိုင်း
63. Magway People’s Revolution Committee
64. Magway Region Human Rights Network
65. Magway Region Revolutionary Group’s Network (မကွေးဒေသ တော်လှန်ရေးအင်အားစုများ ကွန်ရက်)
66. Mandalar University Students’ Strike
67. Mandalay Alliance Coalition Strike
68. Mandalay Medical Family (MFM)
69. Mandalay Strike Force (MSF)
70. Mandalay Women Strike
71. Mandalay Youth Strike
72. Mandalay-based People’s Strike
73. Mandalay-Based University Students’ Unions (MDY_SUs)
74. MayMyo Strike Force
75. Monywa LGBT Strike
76. Monywa People’s Strike Steering Committee
77. Monywa Women Strike
78. Monywa-Amyint Road Strike Leading Committee
79. Monywa-Amyint Road Women Strike
80. Mother’s Embrace Foundation
81. Multi-Religions Strike
82. Mya Taung Strike
83. MyaYar Knowledge Tree
84. Myaung Youth Network
85. Myingyan Civillian Movement Committee
86. Myanmar Institute of Information Technology Students’ Strike
87. Myanmar Labor Alliance (MLA)
88. National League for Democracy (Monywa Township)
89. Network of University Student Unions – Monywa
90. New Myanmar Foundation
91. No.12 Basic Education Branch High School (Maharaungmyay) Students’ Union
92. PDO ပွင့်ဖြူဖွံ့ဖြိုးတိုးတက်ရေးအဖွဲ့၊ ပွင့်ဖြူ။
93. Pale Township People’s Strike Steering Committee
94. People’s Goal
95. Progressive Muslim Youth Association
96. Progressive Voice
97. Purple Window Counselling
98. Pyi Gyi Tagon Strike Force
99. Representative Committee of University Teacher Associations (RC of UTAs)

100. Sagaing Region Strike Force
101. Samgha Sammaga-Mandalay
102. Save Myanmar San Francisco, USA
103. Seinpann Strike
104. Shwe Pan Kone People`s Strike Steering Committee
105. Sisters 2 Sisters
106. Sitt Nyein Pann Foundation
107. Southern Initiatives
108. Southern youth Development Organization
109. Spring Revolution Myanmar Muslim Community _SRMMC
110. Support Group for Democracy in Myanmar (the Netherlands)
111. Taze Strike Committee
112. Taze Women Strike
113. Thakhin Kodaw Mhine Peace Network (Monywa)
114. Thayat Chaung Women Strike
115. The 88 Generation Peace and Open Society (Monywa)
116. The Ladies Organization
117. Twitter Team for Revolution (TTFR)
118. University Students’ Unions Alumni Force
119. Union of Karenni State Youth – UKSY
120. Volunteers in Myanmar
121. Wetlet Revolution Leading Committee
122. Wetlet Twonship Women Strike
123. White Coat Society Yangon (WCSY)
124. Women Alliance Burma (WAB)
125. Women Lead Resource Center
126. Yadanabon University Students’ Union (YDNBUSU)
127. Yangon Women Strike
128. Yasakyo Township People`s Strike Steering Committee
129. Yinmarpin and Salingyi All Villages Strike Committee
130. Youth Empowerment
131. ယိမ်းနွဲ့ပါး
132. သမိုင်းသယ်ဆောင်သူများ
133. အညာလွင်ပြင်ရပ်ဝန်း
134. မင်းလှတောင်သူများအစုအဖွဲ့။
135. မင်းဘူးတောင်သူများအစုအဖွဲ့။
136. မြန်မာဒီမိုကရေစီအင်အားစု (ဒိန်းမတ်)

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[1] Myanmar Refugees Stranded in Delhi After US Bans Refugees | January 31, 2025 | BNI https://shorturl.at/WCDG0

[2] Indian authorities allegedly threw 40 Rohingya refugees, including children, into international waters near Myanmar| Makoob Media| May 17 2025  https://maktoobmedia.com/features/indian-authorities-allegedly-threw-43-rohingya-refugees-including-children-into-international-waters-near-myanmar/