Thailand releases Almost 100 Ahmadi Refugees

BANGKOK: Almost 100 Pakistani refugees have been freed from Bangkok’s overcrowded immigration prison in an initiative spearheaded by Thai human rights activists. The Thai Committee for Refugees said the release on bail of 96 members of Pakistan’s Ahmadiyya Muslim sect was the first such large-scale release of refugees who Thai authorities locked up merely for being refugees. The group negotiated the release with the state National Human Rights Commission and immigration officials. The detainees, about a third of whom are …