The Global Refugee Wave and Migrant Crisis

Their case has parallels with that of Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun, the Saudi teen who was given sanctuary in Canada after she sensationally deployed social media to shame Thai authorities against forcibly returning her to her family.

But the Chinese asylum seekers have received little international attention or solidarity.

Like Qunun, Liu and his friend Yan Kefen, 44, have applied for asylum in Canada and posted updates on social media from the airport highlighting their plight.

"Inside the airport we can't breathe fresh air and there's no sunlight," Liu told AFP by phone from the fluorescent-lit fourth-floor room in transit where the pair have spent much of the last three months, subsisting on a diet of boxed meals provided by airlines.

"That can't be too healthy right?" he fretted.

Liu and Yan are hostage to Taiwan's unusual international status and its domestic politics.

The self-ruled island is not recognised by most nations and has no United Nations representation, meaning the UN's refugee agency does not operate there.

And while Taiwan's current polity was founded by people fleeing China's civil war, it does not have local laws to protect refugees.

In recent decades governments have been loathe to allow in those fleeing the authoritarian mainland, fearful of angering Beijing or encouraging a deluge.

President Tsai Ing-wen's government — which takes a more sceptical view of Beijing and vocally pushes its human rights credentials — has so far made no moves to deport Liu and Yan.

As a result, they are stuck — blocked from entering Taiwan yet unable to leave the transit area.

- From China to Thailand -

The pair never intended to end up in Taiwan.

Both fell foul of China's authorities for political activism and fled to Thailand, Yan arriving in 2015, Liu in 2017.

Bangkok does not recognise asylum applications and outsources the determination of refugee status to the the UN's UNHCR, which tries to resettle legitimate claimants in a third country. But the waiting list is notoriously long.

Both Yan and Liu received refugee status from the UNHCR — they sent AFP copies of their documentation — and were happy to remain in Thailand while they sought asylum.

But then Thai police started paying them frequent visits.

"I felt my life was in danger in Bangkok," Yan told AFP. "I was also afraid Thai police would deport me back to China."

They had reason to worry.

Thailand has moved closer to Beijing since generals seized power in 2014, showing a willingness to forcibly return Chinese dissidents.

More than 100 Uighurs and a slew of activists, some of whom had been granted asylum in Canada, have been sent back during the last five years.

Bookseller Gui Minhai, a Swedish citizen, disappeared from the resort town of Pattaya and resurfaced on Chinese state TV making a "confession".

- 'Nothing I can do' -

Liu and Yan decided to make a run for it, landing in Taipei on 27 September.

"We just wanted to get out of Thailand when we boarded that plane," Yan, who also uses the name Yan Bojun, recalled. "We did not have any plans except asking for refuge during our stopover."

Liu and Yan do not currently fear imminent deportation and say they have been treated well by Taiwanese officials.

"We don't want to create trouble for Taiwan, but we need to go on to Facebook and Twitter so that people will not forget us," Yan explained.

Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council — the office that deals with the Chinese mainland — said it recognised "our country's mechanism for dealing with refugee claimants is not yet adequate".

But it added that it and other government agencies were committed to "upholding human rights and also the safety of these two persons".

Canada's consulate in Hong Kong declined to comment citing privacy rules.

Back at Taoyuan airport, all Yan and Liu can do is wait.

"I don't know how much longer I have to stay at this airport," Yan said.

"I can only hope I can leave before the Chinese New Year. If I can't, I can't. There's nothing I can do."

Vanessa Rodel and her seven-year-old daughter Keana were scheduled to arrive in Toronto later Monday on a flight from Hong Kong, the non-profit organization For the Refugees said. They were set to travel to Montreal on Tuesday to settle there as private sector-sponsored refugees.

Rodel was among a group of people who sheltered Snowden, a former CIA employee and US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor, putting him up in her apartment in 2013 while he was in Hong Kong on the run from US authorities.

His leaks of highly classified documents revealed the existence of global surveillance programs run by the NSA in cooperation with partners Australia, Britain and Canada.

Snowden, who now lives in Russia, was charged in June 2013 in the United States with espionage and stealing state secrets.

Canada granted Rodel, a Philippines national, and her daughter asylum in January but it was kept secret for security reasons, according to For the Refugees.

"Me and Keana can have a real life, a real future in Canada," Rodel told Radio-Canada by phone before she boarded a plane to Toronto. "I'm so happy."

In a tweet in French, Snowden gave "thanks to all who, in Canada and across the world, made this possible. After so many years, the first of the families who helped me is free, and has a future."

"But the work is not over. With solidarity and compassion, Canada can save all of them," he added.

- Others remain -

Five other people who helped Snowden have also requested asylum but remain in Hong Kong awaiting a response, according to the daily National Post.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declined to comment, saying it would be inappropriate to do so in "a situation regarding a specific case."

But Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland implicitly confirmed the report, telling reporters she had not personally intervened in the process.

Asked during a Washington visit whether the granting of asylum might harm US-Canadian relations, Freeland told reporters that Ottawa based its decision on case-by-case considerations, not "geopolitical relations."

A spokesperson for Canada's immigration ministry also declined to comment except to say that in "exceptional circumstances" requests for asylum can be accelerated.

Radio Canada said Rodel was under pressure from Hong Kong authorities and faced a risk of deportation to the Philippines.

The Alternative for Germany (Af D) party and other far-right groups have seized on the brutal killing of 14-year-old Susanna Maria Feldman in their campaign against Chancellor Angela Merkel's asylum policy.

The accused, rejected asylum seeker Ali Bashar, 22, was convicted of the killing and handed the maximum sentence of life in prison by the court in Wiesbaden, the city where the murder took place in May last year.

The judge, Juergen Bonk, also found the crime to be of exceptional severity, meaning that Bashar will not be granted parole after 15 years as is usually the case in Germany but kept behind bars.

Bashar battered, raped and strangled the schoolgirl to death in a wooded area near railway tracks on May 23.

The court heard he then sent false messages from Susanna's smartphone indicating she had left for an impromptu trip to Paris.

Her body was only found on June 6 in a shallow grave covered with leaves, twigs and soil.

By this time, Bashar and his family had left Germany and returned to Arbil in northern Iraq.

The accused was however arrested by Kurdish security forces and, even though Berlin and Baghdad have no formal extradition treaty, taken back to Germany.

- Incapable of empathy -

Federal police chief Dieter Romann personally joined the controversial operation, as newspaper front pages showed pictures of commandos escorting a heavily restrained Bashar off an aircraft.

Bashar later confessed the killing but denied the rape, claiming that he and the girl had consensual sex before she fell, got angry and threatened to call the police.

In a separate trial, Bashar is accused of twice raping an 11-year-old girl, who was believed to have also been sexually assaulted by an Afghan youth.

The Bashar case put renewed pressure on Merkel's government over the decision to keep open German borders at the height of Europe's refugee crisis.

The far-right has voiced fury about cases of sexual violence committed by recent migrants and other foreign nationals — including mass assaults in Cologne on New Year's Eve 2015-16, and, in April this year, the alleged gang rape by eight Bulgarian teens of a 13-year-old girl.

Bashar, his parents and siblings arrived in Germany in 2015, at the peak of the influx that would bring more than a million asylum seekers, mostly from the Middle East and Africa.

His asylum request was rejected in late 2016, but he obtained a temporary residence permit pending his appeal.

During this time, he came to police attention for fights, alleged robbery and possession of an illegal switchblade.

Susanna's mother, Diana Feldmann, dressed in black during the almost four-month-long trial, broke down in tears as the court heard the harrowing details of the crime.

"I have already been given a lifetime sentence," she told a court last week.

Bashar by contrast appeared composed during the trial, in which a psychiatrist testified the accused has a personality disorder and is incapable of empathy.

Japan's justice minister says he will work quickly to consider additional measures to deal with the increasing number of foreigners who refuse to be deported by participating in hunger strikes or go missing.

Katsuyuki Kawai said on Tuesday that the issue requires urgent attention as it threatens the basis of Japan's immigration control system and could impact social order and public safety.

The Immigration Services Agency says as of June this year, 858 foreigners were detained at facilities in Japan after rejecting orders to leave the country.

Another 332 went missing during provisional release due to health problems and other reasons. This figure has more than tripled over the past five years.

Agency officials say more and more detainees are going on hunger strikes to win provisional release. A total of 36 detainees in facilities across Japan were said to be refusing to eat as of September 25.

In June, a Nigerian man reportedly starved to death at an immigration center in Nagasaki Prefecture.

The agency publicized a report saying that immigration officials' handling of the case cannot be evaluated as improper, because the detainee refused food or intravenous drips in order to be released.