TIME.COM: REFUGEE CASE HIGHLIGHTS GLOBAL PLIGHT OF AHMADI MUSLIMS

June 08, 2011

Almost 100 Pakistani refugees, including dozens of children and a month-old infant, were freed  from a Thai immigration prison on Monday, after a rights group put up a $150,000 bond for their release. The men, women and children, all members of Ahmadiya, a minority Muslim sect, were detained in police raids between December and February and held for months in cramped, squalid conditions. Thailand has not signed the 1951 Refugee convention and considered them illegal immigrants. As the group drove from the detention center to the temporary housing where they’ll live until they’re resettled abroad, many wept with relief. “It’s like a bird being released from a cage,” one man said.