CONFIDENTIAL
turned elsewhere. On 29 March, there were 12,352 Vietnamese
refugees in Hong Kong awaiting resettlement. 8,706 were in open centres and 3,449 were in closed centres.
7.
In an effort to deter further arrivals of refugees from
Vietnam a policy of confining all new arrivals in closed centres
was brought into force by the enactment by the Legislative
Council on 30 June of the Immigration (Amendment) Ordinance 1982.
FCO Legal Advisers' view is that Hong Kong's legislation is in
breach of our obligations under Article 9 of the Covenant
(concerning the right to liberty and recourse to the courts).
They also take the view that the application of the present
prison rules to the administration of the camps will put us in
breach of a number of articles of the Covenant. The Hong Kong
Government accept the need to amend the rules, and this aspect
will have to be considered again when we see their draft amendments.
Nevertheless, the Secretary of State agreed on 29 January that
for reasons of policy we should not disallow Hong Kong's
legislation.
Repatriation of New Arrivals in Hong Kong
8. The Government of Hong Kong recently requested that our Ambassador in Hanoi should be instructed to approach the Vietnamese Government on the possibility of forcible repatriation of future arrivals of Vietnamese in Hong Kong. The Secretary of State is not persuaded
by the arguments in favour of this, and has instructed that we should consider other ways of helping Hong Kong. There has in recent weeks been speculation in the Hong Kong press (and to a small extent in the UK press) that forcible repatriation is being considered. Hong Kong Government officials have been careful not to rule it out as a possibility. For some time illegal immigrants from China have been returned with the agreement of the Chinese authorities after careful consideration of humanitarian grounds
or requests for refugee asylum. Extracting worthwhile safeguards from Vietnam would be much more difficult.
CONFIDENTIAL
/Polish Refugees