2.Background
2.1 A HISTORICAL REVIEW (circular by Joint Comm. on Boat People Living Concern )
It is necessary to present a review of the beginning and the process of develop- ment of the whole affair of the boat people in order to understand the arrest of the representatives who were carrying petitions to the governor.
WHO ARE THEY ?
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Boat people are those fishermen who have been living in their fishing boats. Due to the gradual mechanization in the technique in fishing in Hong Kong these people could no longer compete with the most modernized fishing boats; as a result most of them have been forced to turn to other occupation like unskill or semi- skill manual work on land. Most of these people cannot afford the high house rent on land seeing a family usually has a big number of children while the monthly income for the family is extremely low. As a result most of them must go on tolerating the inhuman and destitute living condition inside the typhoon shelter where their boats are located.
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THE GOVERNMENT'S POLICY TOWARDS THE BOAT PEOPLE
The Government has been negligent of the boat people because :
1) the government has no intention to develop the place where these people have
been living in; in short it is not necessary to move these people;
2) the present living situation does not look 'dangerous' to the Housing Department
officials and therefore they have ignored the people's requests;
* 3) It thinks that these people might not be able to afford the rent of public housing.
Hence the boat people realized that they had to take the initiative in order to put their hopes into realistic concrete practice rather than continuing with useless appeals to the bureaucrats of the Housing Department.
BEGINNING OF THE ACTION
In 16 September 1977 at 3 p.m. as many as 250 boat people attempted to bring a petition to the Chief Secretariat. They also displayed a broken boat outside the Government Office. This action appealed for immediate resettlement of the boat people. They also gave a petition to the Public Work Department in which they appealed for a comprehensive investigation of the safety of all the boats. They gave a total of four letters in this action, but the government turned out to be silent once more. Later, the boat people decided to appeal again.
UNSTOPPING ACTIONS
70 representatives of the boat people petitioned to the Marine Department again on 29 September 1977 asking immediate resettlement before 7 October.
There was another petition to the Homantin Housing Department on 13 October; this time the representative delivered a letter in a 2' x3' envolop. This letter appealed to Scott, the Head of Housing Department, asking for resettlement in the Licensed (temporary) areas in Cheung Sha Wan.
However, the government excused themselves with the following explanation : "It is our policy to concern ourselves with the demands for public houses from different sectors of society. The provision of houses or temporary houses to the boat people in large scale might possibly cause opposition from other people. The government guarantees that the people in boats as well as those on land have equal opportunity to reside in public housing estates provided that they apply to the Housing Department in the appropriate way".
The neglect to consider the specifically poor condition of the boat people seemed a poor excuse to the boat people.
5 VICTIMS, 4 PETITIONS
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