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Hong Kong politics
OpinionLetters

Letters | Hong Kong must not fail refugees with immigration law reform

  • The city’s unified screening mechanism for asylum seekers already leaves much to be desired from a human rights perspective
  • Arming immigration officials, limiting the time for claimants to file an appeal and enabling denial of access to interpreters will not help

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Asylum seekers plead with the Hong Kong government for visas on humanitarian grounds, at the government headquarters in Admiralty in March last year. Photo: Dickson Lee
Letters
As a network of organisations and individuals working to advocate for and better the lives of asylum seekers and refugees in Hong Kong, we are deeply concerned about the proposed amendments to the Immigration Ordinance, gazetted on December 4.
Hong Kong is not a signatory to the UN 1951 Refugee Convention. Instead, the city has developed its own screening system called the “unified screening mechanism” (USM) as per its obligations under the Convention against Torture, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and relevant court rulings. Hong Kong has been reluctant to grant any additional protection to refugees and asylum seekers beyond non-refoulement (protection against deportation).
As of September this year, there were only 231 cases substantiated under the USM, which at 1 per cent approval rate is one of the lowest in the developed world.
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The casework experiences of our network’s member organisations reveal that the spirit of the USM is very distant to any human rights protection whatsover. Cases are often rejected for reasons showing a profound lack of understanding of human disasters and almost malicious ignorance.

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Living in limbo: The life of an asylum seeker in Hong Kong

Living in limbo: The life of an asylum seeker in Hong Kong

Marianne, a gang rape victim, was told at her hearing that she could safely return to her country in East Africa that had been plunged into civil war. She then suffered a severe panic attack and went into depression. The legality of the detention conditions in Hong Kong is a grey zone. Nuria, who recently lost her child, was tied to her bed when she struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder while in detention.

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