Samoa’s decision to refuse entry into the country of eight of its citizens over coronavirus fears has been criticised as a violation of international law by a legal expert.

Eight people were denied entry into Samoa over the weekend as they returned home from India, travelling through Singapore. The day before their flight, Singapore was added to a list of countries from which the Samoan government said it would not accept travellers until they had been quarantined for 14 days.

The group included five patients who had been in India for medical treatment. They were returned to Nadi, Fiji, their last port of departure, along with 11 others and are now being quarantined at the Grand Melanesian hotel in Nadi.

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“On their way home, the Samoans had transited through Singapore, one of the six countries listed as a high risk from the coronavirus in the government’s latest updated travel advisory issued over the weekend. As a result, they were denied entry and returned to Fiji last night,” the Samoan government said in a statement on the weekend.

Jorge Contesse, the director of the Center for Transnational Law at Rutgers Law School in the US, said the incident was potentially a violation of international law.

“It is a violation of human rights international law for a country to deny the right of return of their own national. There is a human right to return to your home country and countries cannot deprive you of this right in a way that is arbitrary. That is a principle enshrined in UN human rights, and is a basic international human right as observed through human instruments and the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR),” said Contesse.

Samoa is a party to the ICCPR and acceded in 2008.

“It is a fundamental right. On the understanding that your country is the place you feel safe in, therefore it is unlawful for your own country to deny re-entry,” said Contesse.

In an editorial on Wednesday, the Fiji Sun newspaper condemned the decision, saying it was “morally wrong for Samoa to refuse entry to eight of its citizens”, calling it “unacceptable and tantamount to dereliction of duty by a sovereign state”.

The Samoan government has introduced stringent quarantine measures for the coronavirus – now called Covid-19 – as it is dealing with intense criticism of its handling the measles epidemic that killed more than 80 people in 2019.

The government has also been criticised for its initial response to the coronavirus, with the Samoan government initially saying Samoan students would not be evacuated from Wuhan, though four were later evacuated on the Air New Zealand flight and are being quarantined in New Zealand.

A parent of a Samoan student in Wuhan wrote on social media: “We must be the only country turning away our own citizens to be quarantined elsewhere. What is the difference of being quarantined in Fiji and not Faleolo hospital as been advertised? This is most bizarre.”

According to Contesse the violation is determined by the arbitrary nature of the decision to deny reentry.

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“Samoa needs to show that the decision is not arbitrary … Were there any other alternatives, because under international law, if the country has an alternative … then the country must enact that measure first.”

“Based on this case, the eight citizens could have been quarantined in Samoa, their own country or provided alternative measures that did not infringe on their rights of reentry. If there were any other ways for the Samoan government to protect its population they should have chosen that as a measure,” said Contesse.