Miserable Christmas in Thailand for Pakistani Christian asylum seekers living in the shadows
- Denied refugee status, their tourist visas expired and hiding from immigration authorities in tiny rooms, Pakistani Christians live in the shadows
- Four-year-old born in Bangkok to parents persecuted for singing Christmas songs worries Santa won’t come because their room has no chimney
Four-year-old Shazee has one wish this Christmas. He wants Santa to pay him a visit, but isn’t sure how Father Christmas will find him.
A bright, lively boy, Shazee has spent all his life inside a small, low-rent flat in eastern Bangkok. He shares the 215 sq feet (20 square metre) space with his parents, Shan and Sherry, Christian asylum seekers who fled from Lahore in Pakistan to the Thai capital in fear of their lives in early 2014.
Christmas is a time of bad memories for Shan; he and his wife fled their home country after being overheard singing Christian songs and accused of offending Islam for doing so.
Thailand rarely grants asylum to refugees and the couple, who have long overstayed their tourist visas, are technically illegal immigrants. Shazee, who was born in Bangkok, is a stateless child without documentation.
If caught, Shan and Sherry (who asked that their family name not be used) could wind up in Bangkok’s notorious Immigration Detention Centre, where visa overstayers are held, often indefinitely.
To avoid that fate, they try to stay out of sight. They rarely leave their flat, which has become like a prison cell in which they are their own jailers. Their front door has a large padlock on the knob outside to make it look as if no one is home, in case immigration authorities come knocking.
