This year's World Refugee Day (June 20) will always be special for Muhammad Nurul Al-Khalil. Last night, the 29-year-old Acehnese refugee boarded a plane to the United States where he will be resettled.

However, it has not been an easy ride.

For the past three months, he was held in immigration detention centres here for illegal entry despite possessing an identification paper issued by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Muhammad Nurul was detained during a nationwide crackdown on undocumented foreigners in Selayang on March 17.

He was arrested when seeking information from an immigration officer on the status of his friend who was in the midst of being detained.

"I was merely trying to get his UNHCR registration number and trying to inform the officer that he was a refugee. The officer became angry and I was arrested too," he said when met yesterday.

He also claimed that the irate office had dismissed UNHCR as 'meaningless' in this country.

'Inhumane' detention

Muhammad Nurul's story provides a glimmer of hope to the over 50,000 refugees seeking asylum in the country.

Many are jailed while others hide in Kuala Lumpur's outskirts awaiting for the protracted resettlement process to be completed.

Muhammad Nurul, who fled from Aceh in August 2003 after landing on the Indonesian army's 'wanted list' for organising a massive pro-democracy demonstration, claimed his detention here was 'inhumane'.

He said he had noted down his experiences in a diary whenever he could. Muhammad Nurul, who was released on June 17, plans to circulate this to expose the humans rights violations here.

"I was first held in the Damansara Immigration Centre lock-up for a total of 23 days. Two weeks in a 4 x 6m holding cell - filed to the brim with over 60 people sometimes - and nine days in solitary confinement in a space below the office elevator," he recalled.

He was subsequently moved to the Semenyih detention centre where he spent over two months in a bigger cell block - 20 x 30m - with over 400 inmates.

Muhammad Nurul claimed that he suffered from bouts of fever, lack of proper food and medical attention.

There were many others, he said, who suffered more serious illnesses and human rights abuses than him. He also claimed that he saw a Nepalese detainee die of poor health while in detention.

Not recognised

A majority of detained asylum seekers, like Muhammad Nurul, possess UNHCR protection papers that recognise them as people fleeing human rights abuses in their country of origin.

However, Malaysia does not recognise this as it is not a signatory to the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees 1951.

Even for Muhammad Nurul, his relocation to US - worked on by the UNHCR immediately after his arrest - had to be cautiously done as there was no guarantee he would not be detained again.

The UNHCR kept him in their close protection and sorted out his travel papers, as it consisted of non-conventional travel documents and arrangements, when taking him to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport last night.

As for his new home, Muhammad Nurul said he plans to study English and Political Science in the US as well as experience and understand democratic practices completely before returning someday.