T
JUSTICE
(BRITISH SECTION OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION OF JURISTS)
HONG KONG BRANCH
President of Council
The Rt Hon. The Lord Gardiner
Chairman
I. R. A. MacCallum
Deputy Chairman B. H. Tisdall
Executive Secretary Hin-Lee Wong
Communications:
Executive Secretary
727 PRINCE'S BUILDING,
CENTRAL.
HONG KONG.
Cables:
JUSTJURIST HONGKONG
Telephone: H-237851
14th July 1982
The Hon. J. Griffiths Q.C. Attorney General
Central Government Offices Hong Kong
Dear Sir,
Re: Immigration (Amendment) Ordinance 1982
Further to our recent letter we have now noted the Rules made pursuant to the above Ordinance and published in last week's Gazette.
These Rules appear to be copied from the normal Rules for prisons operated by the Correctional Services.
While this is no doubt very convenient so far as the Correctional Services are concerned, the Rules are not appropriate for a centre which is catering for the detention of refugees and not for the imprisonment of convicted criminals.
In particular the provisions regarding discipline appear to be far too stringent and in themselves likely to create a situation which could give rise to further problems. Conditions in closed camps where people are subject to indefinite detention will obviously produce tensions. Excessive discipline will aggravate those problems.
The refugees are not criminals. They are being kept indefinitely in detention in a situation where tensions may be generated very easily and the likelihood of incidents arising is quite high. If that is so these incidents should be dealt with under the normal criminal law procedure and not by administrative punishments under the control of the Correctional Services Department.
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