TNAG-1525-FCO40-2089-Hong-Kong-Parliamentary-Sub-Committee-on-Race-Relations-and--1986 — Page 66

JA4AXK

PARLIAMENTARY QUESTION BY MR KEITH, MP

1.

Mr Best has shown great interest in refugee matters, and is

Chairman of the British Refugee Council's Committee for Refugees

from Indo-China. He last visited refugee camps in Hong Kong in January 1985. Mr Best secured an Adjournment Debate on South East

Asia (Refugees) in May 1985, when he referred to several of the

matters raised in the present questions, and spoke in another

adjournment debate that month, on family reunion cases. He asked

seven questions on refugees in February.

2.

The present question refers to a report by Refugee Action,

one of the voluntary agencies handling resettlement of Vietnamese refugees in the UK. Lord Chitnis, the Chairman of Refugee Action, visited Hong Kong in February and signed the report, which repeats criticisms of the principle of the closed refugee camps in Hong Kong

and the way Hong Kong runs them.

He has tabled an unstarred

question for debate in the Lords on 14 May on the subject.

3.

The report has

attracted no media attention in UK, and

little in Hong Kong. There is some resentment in Hong Kong at its sarcastic treatment of the Voluntary agencies' work. The report is

factually wrong in several respects and draws

conclusions by selective reference to statistics.

contentious