TNAG-1185-FCO40-1487-Resettlement-of-Vietnamese-refugees-from-Hong-Kong-into-the--1982 — Page 168

布政司署

香港下亞畢道

CONFIDENTIAL

ARM OUR REF.:

(13) in CR 14/4821/82

YOur Ref.:

13

GOVERNMENT

SECRETARIAT

LOWER ALBERT ROAD

HONG KONG

8th November, 1982

Mrs. D.B. Lasan

Charge de Mission

United Nations High Commissioner

for Refugees

3/F, Block N

Victoria Barracks

HONG KONG

Lean Mas lason,

Vietnamese Refugees in Tai Tam Gap Correctional Institution

1

I am writing to advise you of the outcome of the investigation conducted by the Commissioner of Correctional Services into the serious questions you raised with Mr. P.J. Williamson on 6th October 1982 about the treatment of young female refugees detained at Tai Tam.

2. The complaints were immediately referred to the Correctional Services Complaints Investigation Unit, which began its

investigation as soon as the UNHCR counsellors were available for interview.

3.

Two preliminary points must be made about the manner in which the investigation was effected: first a crucial delay between many of the individual incidents allegedly having occurred and their being made known to the Administration has nullified the value of any medical evidence. Secondly, the reluctance of the UNHCR counsellors to identify any individual refugee as having been involved in any individual incident of maltreatment meant that all the detainees had to be interviewed in turn on each of the complaints, thus making collusion during the later stage of the inverviews almost inevitable.

4.

I shall take in turn each of the complaints recorded by Mr. Williamson, and summarise the findings of the Investigation Unit upon them. I shall thereafter advise you of the Administration's conclusions and intended response to the allegations as a whole.

(a)

Complaint: the detainees had to sit for 24 hours in a locked room every day, doing and saying nothing:

This allegation appears to derive from a misunderstanding. The Superintendent of Tai Tam believed that Mr. Hall and Mr. Nietzman of the UNHCR would wish, during their visit to the centre, to speak to the girls in farily orderly circumstances. She instructed them not to play games, but to sit

CONFIDENTIAL