By JOSIE CLARKE
Hundreds of Chinese Indonesians have started a public battle with the Immigration Service to stay in New Zealand, claiming they will be persecuted if they return home.
Most arrived in New Zealand in 1998, fleeing the May riots when military groups of the native Indonesian Muslim population attacked the mostly Christian ethnic Chinese.
Immigration has so far processed 80 of the applications to stay as refugees, but has decided that conditions in Indonesia are now safe enough for all of the 80 to return home.
The applicants will have to return unless the independent Refugee Status Appeals Authority overturns the decisions.
North Shore New Life Church minister Carl Jukes, who met some of the group through English classes he runs, said Immigration seemed to have put them in the "too-hard basket." He understood the group numbered more than 1500.
At a public meeting at the church last night attended by National list MP Pansy Wong and National MP for Epsom Richard Worth, several of the 150-strong crowd described why they were scared to return to Indonesia.
One man, who declined to be named, said the Indonesian Government ignored crimes against Chinese.
He had been robbed at knifepoint and had seen homes around him burned by Muslims.
Mr Jukes said the whole group were prepared to sign declarations promising they would not apply for a benefit or leave New Zealand for five years. Many had already found jobs.
"They all declare an absolute abhorrence to receiving any money from the Government.
"They ... came strictly as refuge-seekers looking for a new life because many of their friends and family had been raped or killed."
Chinese battle to stay as refugees
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