XN000022-1996-04-18 — Page 5

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Mr Albert Chan (in Chinese): Thank you Mr President. Mr Governor, when you were in the UK you told the public and the press that in Hong Kong there were people of different political views and there were also demonstrations in Hong Kong and they should be treated well.

Then when Director Lu Ping was in Hong Kong a lot of our members and others demonstrated but then your staff hit us and wrongly alleged that they were doing something that they never did. So your staff never treated the protesters well. Now I wonder if you could see this picture here, you can see here there are some of your staff who were holding onto protesters' necks and this was quite uncalled for.

So in the coming 400 days there will be a lot more protest actions I am sure. So how can you ensure that your staff will definitely well treat protesters instead of you resorting to such violent means?

Governor: Perhaps the Council will allow me to set out my views on this subject at some length.

We have in Hong Kong, which is a free and open society where people have the right to express their views, where they have the right to assemble and to demonstrate if necessary, we have a first class police force who, I think, manage to hold the balance between the rights of those who wish to protest and the rights of the rest of the community in an extraordinary firm but fair way.

I want to place on record now my gratitude to the police for the way they have handled events in the last few days and for the way they've handled events over the last years.

Hong Kong is an extremely tranquil community. We haven't seen many events like those of the last few days in my four years in Hong Kong. And when there are demonstrations or protests, they are handled with extremely good humour and good sense by our police. Very often young men and women recently joined the Force. Let me give an example: it's within all our knowledge that the headquarters of the New China News Agency is sometimes a focus for political argument and discussion. In 1994 and 1995 there were in all 139 meetings in the vicinity of the front entrance of the New China News Agency. There were nine marches to the New China News Agency. In all that time, with all those demonstrations, there was only one arrest. I think that's a tribute to the police and I have to say, I think it's a tribute to the way in which, by and large, people put their views in Hong Kong. Even when they feel strongly about them and even when they feel that they have to put those views in a demonstration or in a march.