Screening of ‘Boat People’ Assailed : Refugees: Amnesty International decries ‘critical shortcomings’ in Hong Kong. It calls for a halt in forced repatriation.

Amnesty International, a London-based human rights organization, said Monday there are “critical shortcomings” in the way Hong Kong officials determine whether Vietnamese “boat people” qualify as political refugees.

It called on the authorities to halt further forced repatriation of “boat people” to Vietnam until the situation is remedied.

At the same time, British officials were quoted as saying that the Bush Administration has reversed its policy and is close to accepting the principle of mandatory repatriation to Vietnam of boat people in Hong Kong camps who are not determined to be political refugees.

The officials, who spoke on the second day of a visit to Hong Kong by British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd, were quoted as saying that the United States wants to see a voluntary repatriation program given more time to work before the Vietnamese are forced to return home.

So far, the officials said, the United States and Britain have not agreed on how much time the voluntary program should be given.

A Change of Heart

The reported change of heart came after U.S. officials spoke out strongly against sending any Vietnamese home against their will. British officials said the change came after “intensive contacts” aimed at removing a rare source of friction between London and Washington.

They were quoted as saying that no further forced repatriations will take place until the subject is discussed in Geneva at a meeting of the International Steering Committee on Vietnamese Refugees. The meeting was to have taken place Jan. 18 and 19, but was postponed indefinitely at the request of the United States.

Britain provoked a storm of criticism in December by sending 51 “boat people” back to Vietnam, most of them women and children who had been designated economic migrants under a system of refugee selection that the Hong Kong authorities adopted in July, 1988.

The screening process was intended to deter Vietnamese from coming to Hong Kong seeking asylum in the West, but 43,696 made the trip nevertheless. So far, only 925 have been accepted as refugees, joining 11,000 refugees who came here before the screening process was instituted, while 7,567 have been screened out and more than 36,000 are still waiting to be screened.

Amnesty International said Monday that the screening process has “critical shortcomings and cannot be relied on to identify all those who are refugees.”

It called for an independent and impartial investigation into what it called a “continuing pattern of incidents where police have allegedly assaulted detained asylum seekers” and asked that steps be taken to prevent a recurrence.

It said it had called on “the governments of Hong Kong and the United Kingdom to stop the forcible repatriation of Vietnamese asylum seekers for the time being because it believes that the numerous inadequacies that it has identified in Hong Kong’s screening process create a very real risk that some individuals ‘screened out’ in this process may become the victims of human rights violations were they to be returned to Vietnam.”

After the report was made public, Geoffrey Barnes, the secretary for security in Hong Kong, said the criticism was unfounded. He said in a statement that the government is committed to “fair status determination procedures with a view to identify any persons with a genuine claim to refugee status.”

Barnes denied allegations that the police had used unnecessary force in handling detention center inmates.

The Hong Kong government has long maintained that special safeguards are contained in the screening process since it is monitored by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

Anita Klum, the secretary general of Amnesty International’s Swedish section, who was a member of the investigating team that toured Hong Kong in November and December, said the organization accepts the need for a screening process but said the “framework has to be improved.”

Klum said the U.N. agency had only six legal monitors and that they could monitor only a fraction of the 400 cases heard each week.

She said Amnesty International recently came across the case of a man who had been denied refugee status even though he had fled Vietnam to avoid a five-year term of imprisonment for political offenses.

Amnesty International’s report called on the authorities to provide legal assistance and advice at every stage of the screening.

Bias in Screening

The report also called for the creation of an independent body of professionals to conduct the screening interviews, which at present are carried out by Hong Kong immigration officers through interpreters. The report alleged that “at least some of the officers exhibit a bias towards excluding asylum seekers as illegal immigrants rather than granting them the benefit of the doubt as required by the UNHCR handbook.”

It also called on the government to amend the appeals procedure to permit the asylum seeker and a legal representative a chance to be present and for the appeal boards to issue their decisions in writing.

The U.N. agency said Monday that a group of 120 Vietnamese “boat people” will return to Hanoi today under the voluntary repatriation program, which gives “screened out” people the option of returning home rather than remaining in the detention camps.

The official said it is hoped that 5,000 refugees will return home voluntarily in 1990. Only a few hundred went home of their own accord last year.