From: Nhan Tran <tran@peora.sdc.ccur.com>
Subject: NEWS/VN: HK lawyer protests Vietnamese family separations
Originator: anh@media-lab.media.mit.edu
Reply-To: Nhan
Organization: SCV Relay
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 22:05:56 GMT


08/27

HK LAWYER PROTESTS VIETNAMESE FAMILY SEPARATIONS

    HONG KONG, Aug 27, Reuter - A Hong Kong lawyer accused the British colonial
government on Thursday of breaking international law by separating Chinese
illegal immigrants from their Vietnamese spouses.
    Three couples, including two pregnant women, were separated on Wednesday so
that the women could be repatriated to China.
    The couples, who were married in refugee camps here, cannot be reunited in
their own countries because Hanoi bars the return of ethnic Chinese who fled
Vietnam and Beijing will not accept Vietnamese families of boat people married
in Hong Kong.
    One of the women, five-months-pregnant Cheu Nguyet Anh, struggled and wept
as she was dragged away from her husband at the colony's Whitehead detention
centre, local newspapers quoted refugee workers as saying.
    "Taking a wife who is five months pregnant and deporting her to a country
which will not accept her husband for residence is an act which destroys the
family as a unit and renders the child an orphan," said Michael Darwyne, a
lawyer who works with Vietnamese boat people.
    "This is a classic case where the couple should be allowed to stay in Hong
Kong," he said.
    Cheu Nguyet Anh left her native Vietnam and settled in China. Later she fled
to Hong Kong hoping to be granted refugee status which would allow her to
resettle in the West, but under local law she is considered a Chinese illegal
immigrant ineligible for asylum.
    Darwyne said the separation violated Article 10 of the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, to which Britain is a
signatory.
    The article requires that signatories give the widest possible assistance to
the family, including special protection to mothers for a reasonable period
before and after childbirth.
    Darwyne also accused China and Vietnam of discrimination on the basis of
race or national origin by barring the spouses from reunion in their respective
countries.
    Many of the Vietnamese spouses have been refused refugee status and will
either be forcibly repatriated or will return voluntarily under the auspices of
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
    Kaiser Zaman, deputy chief of mission for the UNHCR in Hong Kong, said the
organisation would try its best to reunite the families.
    "We generally would like to see family unity maintained. In the event that
the legal obligations of a host country leads to a family separation we make
every attempt to bring them together again," he said, without elaborating.
    Eddy Chan, Acting Refugee Co-ordinator, defended the government's move,
saying it had warned the couples before they married that they might be
separated later.
    "It is sad that families have to split up. People fall in love, sometimes
they do have genuine reasons to get married," he said.
    "I don't think we have violated the convention as such because we have
clearly explained what is likely to happen to them, that they have to return to
their place of origin."



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