8th February 1985
FROM: RICHARD CABORN MP
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Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey Howe MP Foreign Secretary
Foreign & Commonwealth Office
King Charles Street
LONDON SW1
Dear Sir Geoffrey,
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I have been forwarded the attached petition from Refugee Action Sheffield, part of the Save the Children Fund organisation, with a request to send the petition to you for action.
The national organisation of Refugee Action wishes to express their concern over the situation of Vietnamese refugees in closed camps in Hong Kong.
There are presently approximately 12,600 Vietnemese refugees in Hong Kong, 5,985 of whom arrived before July 1982 and are, therefore, in 'open' camps and 6,505 who arrived since then and who are in 'closed' camps; 584 of these refugees have their closest relatives in the United Kingdom but the British Government has refused to grant them entry visas to come to the UK to settle.
I am writing to ask you to urgently review the closed camp policy in the light of the comments made by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees on 9th August, 1984, and to draw your attention to the British Refugee Council's recommendations for change in the closed camp policy.
I would be most grateful for your comments on the present policy of HMG in this matter, and to sympathetic review of applications for admission to the UK by Vietnamese with close relatives in Britain from both open and closed camps, which would lead to a substantial increase in the near future over the present rate of arrivals from Hong Kong.
Yours sincerely,
lichan cabon
RICHARD CABORN MP SHEFFIELD CENTRAL.
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