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AI Index: ASA 19/04/88
Distr: UA/SC
Please bring the following information to the attention of the Refugee Coordinator in your section.
UA 227/88
HONG KONG:
Ill-treatment/Legal Concern
25 August 1988
Ill-treatment of Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong detention centre
Amnesty International has received detailed reports of an incident involving the ill-treatment of male Vietnamese refugees in the Hei Ling Chau detention centre on 19 July 1988. It believes these reports indicate cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.
The incident is understood to have taken place following a dispute between male refugees (Hei Ling Chau houses both male and female refugees) and Correctional Services Department (CSD) personnel over an alleged reduction of food rations on the evening of 18 July, when an approaching typhoon is reported to have hindered the arrival of supplies. As a result, Vietnamese in one single males hut are reported to have been locked in by the authorities, and to have protested by setting fire to bedding and destroying beds. The following morning, approximately 100 refugees were apparently allowed to leave the hut and then escorted to an exercise area where they are reported to have been put between two lines of CSD helmeted anti-riot squad officers, who then beat them with truncheons. They were subsequently all transferred to Lai Chi Kok prison in Kowloon, where they were again reported to have been ill-treated before being confined three to a cell.
On 22 August the Hong Kong English-language newspaper South China Morning Post (SCMP) quoted "confidential reports telexed" by United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) officials in Hong Kong to their headquarters in Geneva, which stated that 93 refugees had been assaulted on 19 July. "Bruising, swelling and welts" were visible on some of the men, according to one source. A Hong Kong television station is reported to have announced that UNHCR had formally requested a government investigation of the incident. The government refugee coordinator, Mike Hanson, said in a Reuter report of 22 August that he did not know of such a request, but he did acknowledge that the general issue of ill-treatment of Vietnamese refugees had been discussed by UNHCR and government officials in recent weeks. At the time of the incident, government sources are reported to have referred to violence breaking out as the result of agitation by a small number of "ringleaders", without mentioning an intervention by the anti- riot squad.
The incident which is reported to have taken place on 19 July may perhaps have been related to recent changes in Hong Kong Government policy towards Vietnamese refugees. A new screening process for recently arrived Vietnamese was introduced on 16 June this year. The process is designed to distinguish between genuine refugees and economic migrants (who are henceforth to be treated as illegal immigrants and returned to Vietnam).
Telephone 01-833 1771 Telegrams: Amnesty London WC1
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Amnesty International is an independent worldwide movement working for the international protection of human rights. It seeks the release of men and women detained anywhere because of their beliefs, colour, sex, ethnic origin, language or religious creed, provided they have not used or advocated violence. These are termed prisoners of conscience. It works for fair and prompt trials for all political prisoners and works on behalf of such people detained without charge or trial. It opposes the death penalty and torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of all prisoners.