H.K. security chief proposes repatriation for Chinese prisoners

Asian Economic News, Nov 24, 2004

HONG KONG, Nov. 24 Kyodo

Hong Kong's Secretary for Security Ambrose Lee proposed to Beijing on Wednesday repatriating mainland-born prisoners, but the proposal would not be reciprocal for Hong Kong people serving terms in mainland China.

Under the proposal put forward by Lee to Zhang Xiaoming of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office during his trip to Beijing, a mainland citizen sentenced in Hong Kong can be repatriated to the mainland if he or she consents to the arrangement.

Lee said the proposal is to ease overcrowding in Hong Kong prisons where around 4,000, 30 percent, of the inmates are from the mainland.

He said after the meeting that Zhang had respond to the suggestion positively.

But the proposal does not cover Hong Kong citizens sentenced on the mainland.

Ong Yew-kim, a legal expert in Chinese law with Chinese University's Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, said, ''It should be a bilateral agreement. But the one now being proposed is an unequal one. The Hong Kong government should tell us what the difficulties are.''

''The relation between Hong Kong and China should be mutual and an agreement (between them) should be beneficial to Hong Kong people too.''

Wong Chi-yuan of the Society for Community Organization, an activist group that assists families with a member detained or imprisoned on the mainland, said, ''It's outrageous. The government should also be concerned with Hong Kong people serving terms on the mainland.''

The Security Bureau refused to reveal the number of people detained or sentenced in China.

Hong Kong has mutual repatriation agreements with Italy, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, the United States and Britain and a similar arrangement with Macao is being finalized.

It is estimated that at least hundreds of Hong Kong citizens are kept in often deplorable conditions in mainland detention centers or prisons, mostly over commercial disputes.

Many have not had proper trials or even been charged, according to the activist group SOCO.

Some families have also become targets of extortion by from prison officers or local officials.

Hong Kong has a different legal system than China under ''one-country, two-systems,'' which guarantees the independent jurisdiction of the former British colony after its political handover to China on July 1, 1997.

Law Yuk-kai, director for Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor, said the repatriation program may be abused by mainland prisoners who can buy their freedom once they are sent back across the border.

''Because of rampant corruption in China, people of certain background can just go free after they are returned there, but in Hong Kong they still need to fulfill their sentence,'' Law said.

He is also concerned about torture and hard labor in mainland prisons.

International human rights groups lashed out at China's decision to postpone indefinitely a visit to prisons by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, which was scheduled in June.