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6,700 cases pending as torture claimants prove slow to screen

Jan 14th, 2011 | Advocacy | Comment

SCMP Phyllis Tsang – Updated on Jan 14, 2011

It would take 31 years to screen cases of people claiming to have been tortured if immigration officials were to continue at the existing rate. Only 214 cases were completed last year and 6,700 are still pending. The Immigration Department completed the 214 cases after the launch of a pilot screening programme in December 2009. All the claims were rejected. Of these, 108 claimants appealed, with 74 of the appeals rejected, the department revealed yesterday. Fifty-five of the claimants were deported from Hong Kong after screening, and 1,636 torture claimants withdrew their claims last year and returned home.
“We would like to speed up the screening in the coming years,” Director of Immigration Simon Peh Yun-lu said yesterday, adding that procedures were smoother now the scheme had been trialed for a year. Screening of torture claims was resumed after a series of court cases. Under the new programme claimants are provided with legal aid and a duty lawyer. An independent appeal mechanism is also in place. New torture claim cases recorded a 45 per cent drop, from 3,286 in 2009 to 1,809 last year. “Certified torture claimants and refugees are not allowed to work in the city,” Peh said, adding that a court ruling barring torture claimants from working in Hong Kong might be the reason for the drop.

Why do we keep on tormenting real refugees?

Jan 13th, 2011 | Advocacy | Comment

(Mr. Tim Collard’s letter to the South China Morning Post, 14 January 2011)

My father, Bill Collard, director of immigration from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, always insisted that Chinese illegal immigrants at the time were generally not refugees but economic migrants, and he was very clear and uncompromising about this. He waged a long and eventually successful campaign to have such illegals returned to the mainland provided they had not already settled in Hong Kong. He would have entirely agreed with the current director’s position as implied in the report that it is important not to encourage “more people with questionable claims to take a chance on coming to Hong Kong”.

Nonetheless, “hard-nosed” though he undoubtedly was about economic migrants taking advantage of a tolerant society, he was acutely aware that genuine refugees needed to be treated differently. He would have been appalled at our present government’s lack of common humanity in dealing with those whose claims of persecution and even torture have been validated. The director of immigration and his superiors are highly paid civil servants responsible for making decisions in the best interests of the community and they have powers of discretion to make exceptions to general policy when appropriate. If this were not required, a computer could just as well determine who stays and who works, and at a fraction of the cost.

Were true refugees returned to their place of origin it is highly possible they would be killed. Given that they have nowhere else to go, forcing them to exist on pitifully meagre welfare allowances, without the right to work year after year, is inhumane. It is also contrary to the spirit of international agreements on the matter, to which the Hong Kong government is a signatory. Hong Kong rightly aspires to “world city” status, but our government seems to be losing sight of the fact that this also implies some responsibility. It is necessarily difficult for illegal immigrants to obtain refugee status and very few do it. When these very few establish they were, and would still be, persecuted and tortured in their home country, and we allow them to stay on that basis, do we really need to continue to torment them in this petty, hypocritical manner?
Blanket distribution in Fanling
Blanket distribution in Fanling

Why do things always fall apart in Africa?

Jan 12th, 2011 | Advocacy | Comment

In light of the international dramas unfolding in Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Niger (etc.) it’s is doubtless helpful to examine why the entire continent of Africa continues to force hundreds of REFUGEES to flee their homelands for the uncertainty of self-imposed EXILE in Hong Kong. It bears emphasizing the numbers reaching Hong Kong are tiny – compared to the odyssey at Europe’s besieged borders – however our community is less informed about the socio-economic and political background behind this human tide, than people in other world cities. The article below offers a broad picture of how Vampire States force the exodus of what an Ivorian friend described as, “the little people who chose to live another day rather than be killed!” Ultimately it is always GREED and HATRED that undergird this plight and we realize there is no easy solution for either. Vision First believes it is our social responsibility to not only provide material assistance to our members, but especially to advocate for their rights and share what we learn with the community. Today we join our hopes and wishes with all the Sudanese, who suffered through twenty years of persecution, on the dawn of Southern Sudan – may your suffering and struggle finally usher in your Independence Day!

Click to read Professor Mariam’s article published in The Huffington Post.

“Africa is the only continent to have grown poorer over the last three decades” while other developing countries and regions have grown. Africa was better off at the end of colonialism than it is today. According to the U.N., life expectancy in Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Sierra Leone, Zambia, Mozambique and Swaziland for the period 2005-2010 is less than 44 years, the worst in the world. The average annual income in Zimbabwe at independence in 1980 was USD $950. In 2009, 100 trillion Zimbabwean dollars (with a “T”) was worth about USD $300. In the same year, a loaf of bread in Zimbabwe cost 300 billion Zimbabwean dollars (with a “B”). The tens of billions in foreign aid money has done very little to improve the lives of Africans. The reason for things falling apart in Africa is statism (the state as the principal change agent) and central planning, according to Guest. The bottom line is that the masses of Africans today are denied basic political and economic freedoms while the privileged few live the sweet life of luxury, not entirely unlike the “good old” colonial times.

Guest concludes that “Africans are poor because they are poorly governed.” The answer to Africa’s problems lies in upholding the rule of law, enforcing contracts, safeguarding property rights and putting more stock in freedom than in force. Much of Africa today is under the control of “Vampire states“. As the noted African economist George Ayittey explains, the “vampire African states” are “governments which have been hijacked by a phalanx of bandits and crooks who would use the instruments of the state machinery to enrich themselves and their cronies and their tribesmen and exclude everybody else.” (“Hyena States” would be a fitting alternative in the African landscape.) Africa is ruled by thugs in designer suits who buy votes and loyalties with cash handouts.

Things have fallen apart in Africa for a long time because of colonialism, capitalism, socialism, Marxism, communism, tribalism, ethnic chauvinism… neoliberalism, globalism and what have you. Things are in total free fall in Africa today because Africa has become a collection of vampiric states ruled by kleptocrats who have sucked it dry of its natural and human resources. It is easy to blame the white man and his colonialism, capitalism and all the other “isms” for Africa’s ailments, but as Cassius said to Brutus in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.” The fault is not in the African people, the African landscape or skyscape. Africa is rich and blessed with natural and human resources. The fault is in the African brutes and their vampiric regimes.

A room for two refugees in Shamshuipo: bunkbed, chair, storage and kitchen.
A room for two refugees in Shamshuipo: bunkbed, chair, storage and kitchen.

Refugees denied the right to work

Jan 7th, 2011 | Advocacy | Comment

Refugees are the most resilient people: their very determination to survive against all adversity is testament to their tenacity and endurance. When stranded in Hong Kong, our beneficiaries’ most painful realization is they are POWERLESS to do anything to better their life, besides sitting and waiting, begging and praying. The consequence of stranding so many helpless and impoverished people on the street is depressing for an affluent, progressive, open-minded society. Because refugees lived productive and active lives in their countries, with jobs, careers and good prospects, they now find perpetual idleness exceedingly disheartening. We are often told that “lack of work” is the one most painful reality they can never get used to, compared to their previous life, in a metropolis famous for its workaholic mentality. There really is only so much time anyone can sit on a park bench without going crazy! Yesterday’s court order has made their waiting even harder, their future even more impenetrable. By denying refugees the opportunity to support themselves, the HKSAR is condemning them to poverty and exposing them to the social ills stemming from such a coerced existence.

The Court of First Instance ruled that the Director of Immigration has the right to decide on a case-by-case basic if refugees can work and we all know the answer is always negative. This verdict is most traumatic for refugees without resettlement options, condemned to remain stateless in Hong Kong, with their families and young children needy of everything. Yesterday we delivered 50 nappies to a mother who gave birth before Christmas. She was at her wits ends to solve her infant’s pressing requirements. She whispered in despair “What can I do? Do I have to steal food and nappies for my baby? I can’t just sit here in the cold and do nothing while my baby gets sick. What will the police say when I explain that I had no other choice?” Fortunately we were there, but there are a hundred more moms beyond our reach. Let’s be clear, the court didn’t deliberate on the 6600 asylum seekers, but only for the 105 Mandate Refugees, recognized as deserving international protection, who would hardly put a dent in the local work force, if ever they got a job. Today they learn that a two year court battle was lost and an appeal is as remote as unlikely. The judge spoke about not giving a ‘ray of hope’ to illegal immigrants, but he’s confusing his apples and oranges: illegal immigrants are here by choice and have an option to return home – refugees arrived by duress and have nowhere else to go. In our opinion, political and economic concerns trumped humanitarian decency and for Hong Kong refugees the descent into grief accelerates.

South China Morning Post – “Refugees denied right to work” by Chris Ip, Jan 07, 2011

The Court of First Instance ruled yesterday that the government had no obligation to allow certified refugees to work in Hong Kong, even if they suffer mental illnesses as a result of not being able to gain employment. The judgment dismissed the claims of five mandated refugees and successful torture claimants who have been in Hong Kong for up to nine years but have failed to find a host country to resettle them. The decision means they will remain here in limbo – dependent on social services and with no path to citizenship in Hong Kong. Two have been diagnosed with depression and another with post traumatic stress disorder, owing to their inability to work and provide for themselves and their families. Mr Justice Andrew Cheung Kui-nung acknowledged that refusing to allow someone to work could amount to “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” and thus violate a basic human right. Nevertheless, he said the director of immigration had full discretion to grant the right to work on a case-by-case basis. Immigration had never given permission to work in this situation, the judge said in November. He said yesterday: “It is for the decision maker, but not the court, to make the decision. The court must not usurp the role of the director.” Cheung said that the Bill of Rights – which enshrines human rights in Hong Kong – does not apply to the applicants because they do not have the legal right to enter and remain in the city; they are allowed here temporarily. Human rights lawyer Mark Daly, solicitor for the applicants, said the ruling showed the judiciary was becoming increasingly unreceptive to human rights arguments. He noted recent High Court decisions to deny transsexuals the right to marry, and to allow the deportation of Edward Wilson Ubamaka to Nigeria where he could be prosecuted for a crime for which he has already served jail time. “Without the judiciary breathing life into the Basic Law and these human rights instruments, government power will remain basically unchecked,” Daly said. “I think it leads to bad – or no – policies because effectively they’re given carte blanche to do whatever they want to do.” The government had argued that granting work rights to refugees, even those whose claims of persecution and torture had been validated, would attract more people with questionable claims to take a chance on coming to Hong Kong. Cheung said the director of immigration was entitled to think that any sign of relaxation in the government’s attitude would be a “ray of hope” for illegal immigrants.


A VF Member happily resettled
A VF Member happily resettled