A group of refugees who sheltered US fugitive whistle-blower Edward Snowden in Hong Kong are facing deportation after the territory’s authorities rejected their bid for protection, their lawyer said yesterday.
The impoverished Philippine and Sri Lankan refugees helped the former US National Security Agency contractor evade authorities in 2013 by hiding him in their cramped homes after he initiated one of the largest data leaks in US history.
They have spent years hoping the Hong Kong government would recognize their cases and save them from being sent back to their home countries, where they say they were persecuted.
However, immigration authorities rejected their protection claims.
“The decisions are completely unreasonable,” their lawyer, Robert Tibbo, told reporters, adding that the procedures had been “manifestly unfair” toward his clients.
Tibbo said their cases had been rejected because their home countries were deemed safe.
The refugees have said previously they were specifically asked about their links to Snowden by Hong Kong authorities.
“We now have less than two weeks to submit appeals before the families are deported,” Tibbo said alongside the refugees, who were visibly distressed.
He said there was a risk his clients could be detained and their children placed in government custody.
After leaving his initial Hong Kong hotel bolthole for fear of being discovered, Snowden went underground, fed and looked after by the refugees for about two weeks.
Their stories only emerged late last year.
The group includes a Sri Lankan couple with two young children and a mother from the Philippines and her five-year-old daughter.
The adults say they experienced torture and persecution in their own countries, and cannot safely return.
Their lawyers and some Hong Kong legislators have said two of the Sri Lankan refugees have been targeted by agents from their home country who traveled to the territory.
Hong Kong is not a signatory to the UN’s refugee convention and does not grant asylum.
However, it is bound by the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and considers claims for protection based on those grounds.
It also considers claims based on risk of persecution.
After government screening, claimants found to be at risk of persecution are referred to the UN’s refugee agency, which can try to resettle them to a safe third country.
However, with fewer than 1 percent of cases successfully substantiated by Hong Kong authorities, most refugees live in fear of deportation.
Hong Kong’s 11,000 marginalized refugees spend years in limbo, hoping the government will eventually support their claims.
Lawyers for the Snowden refugees in March separately lodged an asylum petition with the Canadian government and called for that process to be expedited yesterday.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) also urged the Canadian government to “intervene swiftly and protect them” following the rejection of their petitions in Hong Kong.
The refugees faced “dire risk if sent back to their countries,” HRW general counsel Dinah PoKempner said.
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