The Secretary of State for Home Affairs,
Home Office,
Wellesley Road,
Lunar House,
Croydon GR9 2BY,
England,
J.V.^. Mitchell,
2 Macdonnell Road, Hong Kong.
1st March, 1985.
Į
United Kingdom.
Lear Sir,
I write as Chairman of the Hong Kong Prisoners of War Association with reference to Section 4(5) of the British Ilationality Act 1981, to appeal to you to confer British Citizenship on a very small number of ex. Pows who face the de pressing prospect of being made stateless in July, 1997 when Creat Britain ceases to exercise authority over the de pendent territory of Hong Kong.
The men I refer to are all ex. members of the Hong Kong Volunteer be fence Corps who fought in the defence of the Colony in December, 1941 and who subsequently became Prisoners Of Lar of the Japanese, until release d from captivity in September, 1945.
This age
ed and dwindling number of ex. Pows were in the prime of manhood when the Javanese attacked Hong Kong and although volunteers,
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and air support, long cong vas Lorded to capitulate on Christmas Day, after a courageous but hopelessly equal fight.
A prisoners of war, these men suffered forty-four months of great de privations, indignities, torture, inhuman handling and mental and physical hardships which even today, in some form or other, have left them with permenent disabilities. The youngest of these men is now in his early (Os and the oldest is in his 60s.
whe
They were born in liong Kong mostly of Eurasian or Portuguese parents themselves had been born here, as were their parents and their grandparents Lefore them.
1
There is, there for: very long association with Britain and with all things British and a very firm 'elief in kritish justice.
These men and their forebears have contributed in no small way to building up Hong Kong and mal ng it what it is today
g it what it is today, a dynamic territory and the third largest financial contre in the world.
Locally there is speculation that when the time
time comes you will be called upon by the Hong Kong Government to exercise the discretionary powers vested in you, to grant British Citizenship to local Civil Servants holding top posts in Government, those persons in sensitive jobs and even to prominent citizens upon whom ller Majesty the Queen has conferred knight- hoods or other national honours.
./2.