Refugees International highlights Ummid 2010 competition
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Maureen Lynch of Refugees International has published this piece:
Seven years ago a group of young Urdu-speakers claiming to be citizens of Bangladesh filed a petition to demand enrollment in the country’s list of voters. The government challenged their request, but the High Court determined they are “citizens of Bangladesh and their residence in the Geneva Camp, Mohammedpur, is not a bar to be enrolled as voters.” Five years later, in May 2008, a landmark decision in the Supreme Court restored the citizenship rights of the so-called Urdu-speaking refugees and stateless people (also known as Biharis, or stranded Pakistanis) who had languished in camps and ghettos since the emergence of Bangladesh in 1971. Since then, changes substantiating citizenship status have been few and far between. The goal now must be to make ready and steady progress toward fully integrating the population into the larger society.