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Refugee issue a burden on Hong Kong ... but Shenzhen detention camp not the solution, says Leung Chun-ying

Chief executive says plan would take too long to organise and Hong Kong needs a quicker solution to influx of asylum seekers

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Leung Chun-ying said he would seek to work with Beijing on a diplomatic level to solve the problem. Photo: Simon Song

Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying dismissed the idea of building a detention camp across the border to house asylum seekers in Hong Kong, though he claimed the refugees were causing great distress to the city.

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Leung’s comments came after the executive councillor and former security chief Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee calling for a camp to be set up in Shenzhen for asylum and torture claimants to stem the influx of economic immigrants to the city.

Responding to a question from the South China Morning Post before the weekly Executive Council meeting yesterday morning, Leung said Ip’s idea would take too long and the city could not afford to wait.

“We [want] to solve the problem with solutions that will take effect in the short term. If we were to find a place on an outlying island [in Shenzhen], it would take a long time to finish the planning stage in Hong Kong,” Leung said.

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Ali, a 28-year-old asylum seeker from Bangladesh, who has been waiting for his case to be screened in the territory for nine years, described Ip’s idea as “discriminating” and said it would not halt bogus claimants from entering the city.

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