Last month, a 30-year-old Muslim from Bangladesh received a sudden phone call from the police asking him, without a warrant, to appear for questioning about his asylum-seeking status.

Baffled and afraid, the asylum seeker residing in Jeonju, North Jeolla Province, went to Jeonbuk Police Agency for the interview without knowing why he was being questioned.

“Police asked me why I came to Korea, why I applied for refugee status here and what my profession was back in my country,” the Bangladeshi man told The Korea Herald. “They even complained about their doubled workload due to the terrorist attack in Paris.”

“I felt that they saw me as a potential terrorist,” said the man, who traveled to Korea on a legitimate E-9 visa and claimed refugee status for political reasons in March last year. He is now awaiting the result of the application from the lowest court.

A police official from Jeonbuk Police Agency said the interrogation was merely to screen “fraudulent” asylum seekers who they suspected of filing for refugee status only to extend their stay here. The number of asylum seekers being question has increased, the police said, in tandem with the surge in the number of asylum applications in recent months.

In 2015, 5,711 foreign nationals applied for asylum in Korea, nearly twice the number of 2014. Among them, 105 were granted refugee status, putting the nation’s refugee acceptance rate at 3.77 percent.

An Ethiopian asylum seeker also said that he was stopped and asked questions by police on the street shortly after the terrorist attack in Paris on Nov. 13, 2015. “I was at the time wearing a Muslim scarf. Police asked me what my religion was and told me I looked like a terrorist.”

“There have been some dubious cases in recent months. Police burst into prayer rooms and asked questions. They stepped up monitoring on unregistered migrant workers,” said Shekh al-Mamun, a Bangladeshi official at the nation’s first migrant workers’ union. “So far, we could accuse the police of unlawfully cracking down on us without warrants, but the antiterrorism bill could make the practice justifiable and reinforce discrimination against Muslims.”

According to government data, the number of foreign Muslims residing in Korea stands at around 100,000.

The cases came amid heightened security risks and worries following North Korea’s recent nuclear test and arrests of foreign nationals suspected to be terrorist sympathizers.

In December, the National Intelligence Service announced a series of deportations and arrests of foreign terrorist suspects. The spy agency said it had arrested or deported 48 foreigners in Korea suspected of being linked to international terrorist groups or viewed as security risks since 2010.

An Indonesian man, who entered Korea on a fake passport in 2007, was brought to the court on suspicion of supporting a terror organization the Nusra Front, after he posted a video clip of himself waving the group’s flag atop a local mountain on social media.

In light of widening terrorism threats worldwide, the government and the ruling Saenuri Party are pushing for the passage of the long-held antiterrorism bill to enable monitoring of private communications and collect information about terrorist suspects.

The bill is being stalled at the National Assembly by the opposition parties, while a recent poll by Realmeter suggests that 64.8 percent of Koreans back the new security bill.

But human rights activists and critics say the bill could make it easier for police to “legally” crack down on migrant workers based on their religion and race, linking Muslims to potential terrorists. 

“Police are already abusing their authority by calling in asylum seekers without a warrant and established criminal suspicions,” said human rights lawyer Hwang Pill-kyu.

Kim Hyung-jin, head of the Gimhae Korean Migrants’ Human Rights Center, pointed out that migrant workers and asylum seekers, who cannot speak Korean, can become vulnerable.

“I don’t think that the new security bill is entirely intended to combat terrorist threats,” he said. “The government is using foreigners, who cannot speak up, to achieve their own political goals.”

By Ock Hyun-ju (laeticia.ock@heraldcorp.com)