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journalists and other
interested
groups, particularly
the
British
Refugee Council (BRC) who in December 1984 produced a pamphlet camps. Mr Luce both corresponded
"Behind Barbed Wire" about the
with the BRC and discussed with them their detailed criticisms of
Where possible their recommendations for improvement of
conditions have been implemented by the HKG.
the camps.
Report of Home Affairs Sub-Committee оп Race Relations and
Immigration (SCORRI)
4.
SCORRI's recent report "Refugees and Asylum with Special
Reference to the Vietnamese" included a number of recommendations
relating to the problem of Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong. A Home
Office White Paper in response to the report was published on 26
September. With regard to the refugee situation in Hong Kong, it
announced the following:
(i)
(ii)
HMG's decision, in
accordance with SCORRI's recommendation,
to accept for resettlement some 500 refugees who have
relatives in the UK but who would normally fall outside the
Home Office's immigration criteria for family reunion cases. (Most of these are in camp s in Hong Kong, but a few will come from other places of first asylum in South East Asia);
that, depending on the willingness shown by other resettlement countries to respond to Hong Kong's needs, HMG
are prepared to consider accepting further limited numbers from Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Government would similarly be prepared to absorb limited numbers into Hong Kong from the
camps, but again this will depend оп other countries' response to the UK's initiative;
(iii)
present
circumstances
do not mak e
agree to
to it possible
SCORRI's recommendation that Hong Kong's closed camp policy be ended. In HMG's view, abolition of the policy would cause
a sharp rise in the number of arrivals in Hong Kong, and
and unmanageable rise in the
consequently
unacceptable an
camp population in Hong Kong.
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