Friday, July 30

KIM LUNMAN and JANE ARMSTRONG
British Columbia Bureau
Thursday, July 29, 1999

Victoria -- Illegal Chinese immigrants at the centre of a human-smuggling investigation revolted yesterday after their first week in Canada locked up in a military gymnasium under 24-hour police watch.

A protest started when most of the 123 refugee claimants refused to eat lunch and the RCMP locked down the site at a navy base for four hours, temporarily stopping transportation of the immigrants to already backed-up detention hearings. During the lockdown, the claimants were told to lie on their beds and not speak to each other.

RCMP were talking with the immigrants last night through translators to defuse the situation after they agreed to eat dinner.

"They said they were frustrated with the process, they want to know what's going on," RCMP Constable Tracey Rook said.

The trouble started early yesterday after one of a group of 19 suspected "enforcers" who are being investigated for smuggling and segregated from the others in another part of the gymnasium refused to eat his breakfast.

The lockdown meant that only three refugee claimants had their detention hearings by late afternoon. All were denied release. Eight more were heard in the evening after the lockdown was lifted; those people also were denied release.

Police removed the suspected smuggler and took him to a nearby RCMP detachment after he complained at breakfast about the food of Chinese noodles and porridge. Police said he was removed because others in the segregated group of 19 in the gym also threatened not to eat.
He was returned in handcuffs to the gym later in the morning.

"There appeared to be other individuals who wanted to follow his lead," Constable Rook said.

Another man was taken to hospital with a minor medical problem, but officials refused to release details.

"We're trying to accommodate these people," Constable Rook said. "We're trying to make the best of the situation."

One of the refugee claimants' four lawyers, who has interviewed nearly 30 of them through Mandarin interpreters, said some have complained about the food, cold morning showers and of "being humiliated" by having to brush their teeth nude in front of security officers.

"People are getting very anxious," Leandre Rupert-Bailey said. "They have nothing to do. They're anxious to know why they're being treated like this."

Police dogs patrolling the gymnasium where the immigrants sleep have also made them nervous, she said.

The refugee claimants from China's Fujian province are being fed Chinese food for lunch, breakfast and dinner from a Victoria restaurant. They also get snacks of fruit. They have been supplied with Chinese checkers and other board games, and Chinese-language newspapers. They are allowed to go outside in the evenings for brief periods while they are handcuffed and escorted by security officials behind barbed-wire fences.

Eight youths were released yesterday into the custody of provincial child- authorities, but 115 other immigrants remain detained at Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt while authorities piece together the puzzle of their identities.

Earlier, immigration officials had agreed to release 11 of the youths, but provincial child-welfare authorities refused to take three of them, saying they were not convinced that they were really minors after interviews with translators.

"This just supports the difficulties we're having with establishing the identities of these people and determining if they are who they say they are," said Lorna Tessier, a spokeswoman for the Immigration Department.

The 123 immigrants were rescued by the Canadian Coast Guard last Tuesday after they were spotted aboard a rusty, listing ship off the coast of Vancouver Island.

They had no formal identification, and many said they paid or promised smugglers up to $40,000 (U.S.) for the voyage to North America. Many of the passengers were malnourished after 39 days at sea, surviving on rice and water.

Their lawyers are arguing for their release on the grounds that immigration officials have not taken reasonable steps to verify the claimants' identities.

Their cases are being heard in small groups before four immigration adjudicators at the Victoria naval base. It is expected to take several days before all are completed.

So far, 23 men and four teenaged boys (who say they are 16 and 17) who are suspected of being involved in the smuggling operation have been ordered held for another week for another detention review.

Immigration authorities agreed to release the juveniles not suspected of smuggling, those aged 17 and under, into child-welfare custody, but are seeking to detain the remaining men and 17 women.

The eight youths, 14 to 17, were released yesterday into the care of social workers at a halfway house at an undisclosed location in Victoria. They have to report weekly to immigration authorities, but there is no way to prevent them from leaving.

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