Asylum seekers want better screening from Immigration Department

Banging African drums and chanting words such as "justice", hundreds of asylum seekers and torture claimants marched from Central to Immigration Tower in Wan Chai yesterday to protest over what they say is the government's failed screening process.

The rally came as pan-democrats voiced support for an overhaul, with Albert Ho Chun-yan saying he would propose setting up a review committee.

Cosmo Beatson, the march organiser and executive director of Vision First, which advocates for the rights of those seeking protection, said the Immigration Department's rate of recognition of claims was effectively zero. "The recognition rate is only 0.02 per cent [of all claimants] … The department's screening fails to identify victims," he said.

According to Immigration Department figures, five torture claims have been accepted since December 2009, and 3,110 rejected. About 4,350 are being processed and it estimates 2,000 decisions can be made in 2013-14.

A department spokesman said yesterday the claim there was a "zero recognition" rate was groundless. "Any purported correlation between the number of substantiated claims and the standard of fairness or effectiveness of the screening procedures has no rational basis," he said.

Wako Basafe, an asylum seeker from Eritrea in East Africa who has been in Hong Kong for a year, said he wanted a fair and faster system.