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Hygiene issues at the Castle Peak Bay Immigration Centre in Tuen Mun have been a cause of concern for Hong Kong lawyers and lawmakers amid the coronavirus pandemic. Photo: Handout

Exclusive | Coronavirus: Hong Kong lawyers, lawmakers flag hygiene issues at detention centre, but Immigration says health measures in place

  • Legal team says asylum seekers complained about rats, cleanliness at Tuen Mun centre
  • Disinfection, temperature checks, Covid-19 testing being done there, department says
Human rights lawyers and lawmakers have flagged concerns about conditions at a Hong Kong immigration detention centre, saying they are worried about the risk of Covid-19 spreading among detainees.

But the Immigration Department has brushed aside their complaints, saying the health and safety of staff and detainees at its Castle Peak Bay Immigration Centre (CIC) are a prime concern, and appropriate measures have been put in place to prevent the spread of infectious disease.

The Department of Health said it was in contact with the Immigration Department, and the centre would monitor the detainees. “If any show symptoms of Covid-19, they will be sent to public hospitals,” its spokesman said on Saturday.

Opened in 2005, the high-rise centre in Tuen Mun can hold 400 detainees, but it is not known how many live there now.

Karen McClellan, a lawyer at Daly & Associates, said she had received reports of rats, malfunctioning toilets and insufficient access to soap and sanitisers from colleagues who visited the Castle Peak Bay Immigration Centre. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Lawyer Karen McClellan said she became worried after a legal team from Daly and Associates, where she works, visited the centre a number of times over the past month or so.

“There were reports of rats in the premises, malfunctioning toilets, a lack of bleach for disinfection, no access or insufficient access to soap and hand sanitisers,” she said.

McClellan did not go herself, but said the legal team heard about the conditions directly from detainees they met, as well as from correspondence with some of them.

Given the Covid-19 outbreak, she highlighted the risks to detainees, and questioned whether residents showing symptoms were being tested for the coronavirus.

“This is an area that we’re very concerned is falling through the cracks, putting an already vulnerable group even more at risk,” she said.

Hong Kong has recorded 1,035 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and four deaths, with infection numbers slowing in recent weeks. Worldwide, there have been more than 2.6 million confirmed cases and 190,000 deaths.

The CIC is for detainees aged 18 and above. They include asylum seekers waiting for their claims to be processed and those who have been unsuccessful in their claims. Men and women stay in separate dormitories.

Lawmaker Dr Fernando Cheung Chiu-hung also had concerns about hygiene after visiting the centre on March 12 with opposition colleagues Shiu Ka-chun and Eddie Chu.

Cheung, who has a social work background like Shiu, said he was taken aback to see detainees in a day room using ladles to scoop water from a plastic bucket to drink.

“Everyone drank from this bucket. And we are talking about this happening amid Covid-19,” he said. “I didn’t see any soap or hand sanitiser in their day rooms.”

Cheung said detainees spent most of their time in day rooms the size of a regular classroom, with about 40 to 60 people in each room. They are allowed to exercise for an hour each day, using a basketball court inside the building.

Lawmaker Fernando Cheung has also expressed concern about hygiene at the centre after visiting on March 12. Photo: Edmond So

He said most of the detainees were Vietnamese, Central Americans, South Americans, Indians and Pakistanis.

The lawmakers did not speak to any of the detainees. They were shown a men’s floor, a women’s floor, isolation cells, the sick bay, kitchen and visitor’s centre.

“Covid-19 wasn’t our focus. The facility appeared to be clean,” Cheung said. “But we expressed concern that toilet bowls were without covers, and the way they provided drinking water in the day rooms was not hygienic.”

Lawmaker Shiu said he complained right away that the water bucket was unacceptable. He also gave feedback about the lack of complaint forms for detainees to use.

Responding to queries from the Post, the Immigration Department said cleaning and disinfection had been stepped up at the CIC since the coronavirus outbreak.

New arrivals with a recent travel history outside Hong Kong were segregated and observed. It said the centre had also begun collecting deep throat saliva samples for Covid-19 tests, but did not say when this started or how many detainees had been tested.

It said all detainees were provided with masks daily, and urged to wear them, and that there were daily temperature checks for all.

“All detention facilities of the CIC, including day rooms, dormitories, toilet facilities, showering facilities and office areas are cleaned with disinfectant thoroughly and frequently to ensure good environmental hygiene,” it said.

The department insisted that sufficient laundry service, hand washing and disinfection materials were available to detainees, and said the centre’s staff also had to wear surgical masks while on duty.

The department did not say when it began implementing these measures, as well as restrictions on the number of visitors and requiring them to wear masks on the premises.

“To maintain social distancing, all regular visits of non-governmental organisations are suspended for the time being,” it said.

The Post asked the department about the lawmakers’ concerns regarding the water buckets. It is understood that detainees drink from cups, and although the water is stored in buckets, it is clean.

Told about the measures the Immigration Department said it had implemented, McClellan said: “While we are glad to hear that the department has recently been providing masks, we are still seriously concerned about the conditions inside the facility.”

Cheung said that when his group visited the centre, they had their temperatures checked. Staff were wearing masks, but not the detainees, he said.

Shiu recalled: “There were no face masks or hand sanitisers for detainees and visitors.”

Aside from the detainees at the CIC, there are about 13,000 asylum seekers in Hong Kong, with many living in Kowloon.

Refugees and asylum seekers are considered illegal immigrants in Hong Kong and receive limited welfare assistance, including help with housing, food, utilities and transport.

Many have been waiting years to exhaust the legal processes to persuade the courts that they should be allowed to remain in Hong Kong or be resettled to other countries as refugees.

For the very few who succeed in their bid to be resettled elsewhere, moving to a new country can take years.

Jonnet Bernal, manager of Christian Action, an NGO that has helped thousands of asylum seekers since it opened in 2003, said: “Hong Kong is a big waiting room for asylum seekers and refugees, and the protests last year and then Covid-19 have made that wait even longer.”

The Hong Kong office of UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency, told the Post it had temporarily suspended the resettlement of refugees globally on March 17.

“Even before the onset of this pandemic, resettlement to a third country was challenging due to the massive needs of refugees and the limited number of resettlement countries and spots globally. These challenges have been compounded by the pandemic,” it said.

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