TNAG-1273-FCO40-1623-Vietnamese-refugees-in-Hong-Kong-1983 — Page 116

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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.

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/Polish Refugees