Cambodia and Australia: Treating Refugees as Bargaining Chips

Forty Montagnard asylum seekers have been forced to leave Cambodia and Australia to go to Vietnam last month, without a hearing on their claims for protection. 
In addition, the government made half-hearted denials that it had sent them back, it nevertheless explained its rationale for violating the right not to be returned to face persecution, the most sacrosanct principle of international refugee law. Because Cambodia is “neutral” the spokesman for the Interior Ministry said, “taking refugees from any country…is against the Cambodian constitutional law.”

For more information: http://www.hrw.org/news/2015/03/05/cambodia-and-australia-treating-refugees-bargaining-chips