A human rights group has panned a proposal by Hong Kong’s biggest political party to confine arriving asylum seekers to shelters on outlying islands, saying the concept would further marginalize an already vulnerable group.
The pro-establishment Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) advanced the idea yesterday during a meeting with Secretary for Security John Lee, according to RTHK.
Lawmakers said the government should set up shelters on outlying islands for arriving asylum seekers — who they called “fake asylum seekers,” according to the public broadcaster.
There they should be provided for and monitored to stop them from “committing crime,” the party suggested.
DAB lawmaker Ann Chiang said the plan would deter people from coming to the city to make “quick money.”
A spokesperson from Health in Action, an organization that helps asylum seekers access health services, criticized the idea, saying arrivals who had applied for refugee status had a right not to be arbitrarily detained.
“From a humanitarian view, this is a kind of social exclusion, as well as building up an obstacle for people to exercise the right to healthcare,” they told Coconuts HK in an email.
“The proposed idea… would further exclude the groups from the social systems and its rights and privileges.
While there is now an existing gaps for this marginalized group in maintaining dignified life, it is doubtful if this ‘shelter’ move is planned on human rights grounds.”
According to official statistics, the government has determined 17,978 torture/non-refoulement claims from between 2009 and June this year. Of these, 135 were substantiated. As at June 30, there were 2,997 outstanding non-refoulement claims.
