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traumatic events, such as grand scale police raids with tear gas, on ch dren remain to be seen.
The lack of basic freedoms and respect presents another problem in the camps. Camps are guarded by the CSD, Correction Services Department staff, or the Royal Hong Kong Police. Asylum seekers' movement is restricted, even from one section of camp to another, or
to places. of service and from hut to hut at night at some centres.
A
There is no freedom of information, communication, or expression, within the camp, between camps, or with the outside. small example is that both outgoing and incoming mail are censored. A rule and regulation paper regarding any authorized trip outside the camp, i.e., to the hospital, tells the asylum seekers that political statements may not be made. When on a very rare occasion some artists received permission to leave camp to attend an art exhibition of their work, the agency which sponsored them was instructed by the CSD not to allow the press to ask, or the interpreter to interpret, anything political having to do with detention, screening, or forced repatriation - for the artists. The agency was told later that two unidentified plain clothed officers were sent to the exhibition to report back. Furthermore, Garden Streams, the voluntary agency that nurtures art in the camps, was banned for a month after bringing to the public the asylum seekers' artwork, which for a large part expresses misery in detention camps and political protests.
Asylum seekers need to be treated with dignity. This writer has seen too many guards unnecessarily raise their voices, scold, shoo, gesture with batons, and ignore detainees in normal encounters like opening the gate for someone to go to the clinic. Whenever asylum seekers are transferred from one camp to another, the police or CSD put on masks and gloves and use their batons to inspect the asylum seekers' belongings and to frisk them, as if they carry some horrible disease. The authorities also often make asylum seekers squat in line and not stand up, as they are easier to control this way. Of course, there are many good relationships between some camp staff and detainees, but for the most part, the staff has little understanding or interest in the Vietnamese except as anonymous
wards.
The present hardship would be endurable, according to most asylum seekers, if only they knew that they had a chance for refuge outside of Vietnam. For them, the hardest pain is the uncertainty of the future, the discouragement by the Hong Kong Government and the UN, and the prospect of life in bondage in Vietnam. Their fate seems to rest solely on the screening interview. Many asylum seekers view this process as another trip on a little boat to battle the sea all over again for their freedom. Their chance of receiving refugee status seems to be even slimmer than arriving safely because the screening process is so fatally flawed. Furthermore, they have no meaningful access to legal assistance as UN lawyers are few and overworked. Camp management has harassed independent lawyers and
LONIZEEEPING YOUNAJAJETANEYEN AZANANIYANAYOYON, MODAVENPO
CATAN PADAR PUTNOVEETU CAVANA
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