Beauty queen seeking asylum will not be sent to Myanmar
Amid confusion over the status of the Burmese beauty queen in limbo at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport, she can at least take solace that she will not be sent back to Myanmar where she faces arrest. Han Lay, the 23 year old beauty queen, has been held upon arrival in Thailand on Wednesday with reports first saying she had been arrested, and then updates said she had not, but was being denied entry into Thailand where she had sought asylum due to a passport irregularity.
The “irregularity” is speculated to be that the Burmese military junta has revoked the passport of Miss Grand International Myanmar 2020, making international travel extremely difficult. The beauty queen has been seeking asylum, first in Thailand and then in Canada.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has been assisting her and, while her future remains uncertain, she said in an interview with the Bangkok Post that they will not send her back to Myanmar to face prosecution.
“Today everything is a little bit calmer because the UNHCR is protecting me and Thai authorities at the airport are also taking care of me… Before today, I was a bit scared. It is because I do not want to go back to my country. Now everyone is supporting me. I’ve got support from different countries, too… The only thing I can do is wait and see what will happen. I’m sure the UNHCR is working on it because now I can’t get into Thailand and I can’t go out of Thailand. My situation is quite an emergency,
“They have agreed they will not send me back to Myanmar… I’m very appreciative of that. So, thank you to Thailand too … It feels like home living in Thailand.”
Han Lay was seeking asylum in Thailand after being allegedly targeted by the Myanmar ruling military junta after a speech she made during the Miss Grand International 2020 beauty pageant’s finale in Bangkok. In that speech, she spoke out against the junta and urged it to stop using violence against its people.
The military junta then issued a warrant for her arrest after the beauty competition ended, but the model stayed in Thailand and began the process of seeking asylum permanently in Canada. She had been extending her temporary visa in Thailand every two months until she ran out of extensions. She then flew to Da Nang in Vietnam for a period of time and then tried to come back to Thailand and was detained at the Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok.
Han Lay says she is unsure how long she will remain in limbo at the Bangkok airport, or how long the asylum process for Canada will take. She hopes the UNHCR will give priority to her case and not leave her stranded for long.
SOURCE: Bangkok Post
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