វ
Dear
Mu. Guffith
Ex-Hong Kong Police Delegation to U.K. Regency House Hotel, 71 Gower Street, London WC1E 6HJ.
Tel: (01) 637 1804 or
703 5275.
The undersigned are four representatives of 97
former members of the Royal Hong Kong Police Force who have come to Britain to petetion H.M. the Queen about the injustice that surrounds our dismissal from the Force this year.
We have been thrown out of our jobs and quarters under an obscure and virtually defunct Colonial Regulation (C.R.55) a regulation that was intended only to be used for cases of espionage and other similar cases of disloyalty. Our predicament arises from a retail heroin syndicate in Yaumati (a district in Kowloon) which operated between 1975 to 1976. When it was smashed by the Narcitics Bureau in September 1976, documents were seized which were said to implicate police officers by name in protecting this syndicate. The documents were passed to the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) and one year later in 1977 arrests and suspensions were made.
In a parallel development, deep feelings about the oppressive and arbitrary way the ICAC handled this and other cases led to serious unrest in the Force and culminated in a mass march by rank and file officers on police headquarters and a breakaway attack on the headquarters of the ICAC.
This led to the Governor, Sir Marray Naclehose, announcing a partial amnesty for past corruption-a move which the Guardian described as "sordid". This move headed off a potential mutiny whithin the rank-and-file but a scapegoat had to be found to save the Governor's face. That was
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us,
Our position is that no legal proceedings have been taken against us so we have nothing to appeal against. Even our extensive legal costs in fighting CR55 have been declated to be ineligible for legal aid. We are constables, corporals and sergeants for the most part, and we have been careers officers of the Crown. Since the operation of CR 55 one third of us are still unemployed and another third are partially employed in marginal jobs such as unlicensed taxi- drivers or hawkers or car-cleaners. Those who have applied for jobs in reputable firms have, by and large failed due to what we believe to be a Government-inspired blacklist against us. While this still operates, those of us who might wish to emigrate and start a new life elsewhere will still carry the stigma of "Dismissed under CR 55" on our Service Records.
Our petètion has been drawn up by Mr. Henry Litton C.. this chairman of the Hong Kong lar Assublatiron and nagka berious doubts as to the constitutional legality of the use of CR 55 against us. Our main concern is, however, not purely legalistic. It is one of justice. As Chinese police officers
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