LettersHong Kong must protect asylum seekers’ rights if it wants to call itself a world city

I write in response to the article “Saudi sisters on the run from consular staff and family apply to stay longer in Hong Kong” (March 1)

I am ashamed that the Hong Kong government is failing to protect these innocent women’s basic right to freedom from persecution and making it difficult for them to stay in Hong Kong till their asylum request to a third country is processed. Our government’s attitude to asylum seekers is passive, irresponsible and morally inappropriate.

Having said that, however, its attitude and behaviour is predictable. In June 2013, a group of Hong Kong-based asylum seekers, from Sri Lanka and the Philippines, sheltered Edward Snowden to prevent the American whistle-blower from being arrested and politically persecuted. By mid-2017, asylum claims from all involved asylum seekers were declined.

The Security Bureau implied that the refusal was because there were insubstantial grounds to believe the asylum claimants were subject to torture, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment in their countries of origin. However, human rights lawyers denounced the Hong Kong government’s decision and suspected the government retaliated against the asylum seekers for helping Snowden.