XN000022-1996-10-18 — Page 3

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Transcript of Governor's media session

Following is the transcript of the media session given by the Governor, the Rt Hon Christopher Patten, at the Central Government Offices this (Friday) afternoon:

Governor: I'm going on one of my regular duty visits to London tonight. I'll have meetings in London with the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, the Home Secretary, the Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and senior officials. I'm speaking at the TDC Annual Dinner and to the British American Chamber of Commerce in London. I'm also meeting the Hong Kong Association and the Hong Kong Parliamentary Group.

And then I'm going to Scotland where we're holding the biggest business promotion that we have ever done in Scotland on Hong Kong, and I'll be speaking both in Edinburgh and in Glasgow about Hong Kong, and then coming back next weekend. So a pretty busy seven days and a lot to talk about.

Question: Mr Governor, the Chinese Foreign Minister said that the Chinese Government will ban the June 4th memorial activities after 1997. Do you think that is an alarm to the freedom of expression to Hong Kong, and what will you do in Britain to express our concern?

Governor: I think Mr Qian's remarks were deeply unsettling and one reason why they were worrying was because they appear to have been deliberate. They were, I think, issued as a translation by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs itself, so I don't think there can be any suggestion that somehow the newspaper in question garbled the remarks in translation.

I found them worrying for two particular reasons. First of all because they appeared to suggest that whether or not things were covered by the law, certain ways of behaving would not be allowed after 1997. And that, of course, is a matter which is just about as fundamental as you could get. There is a difference between the rule of law and rule by men. There is a difference between the rule of law on the one hand and rules and laws on the other. So that was my first worry. The rule of law is the basis for our decency and our prosperity here in Hong Kong.

Secondly I was concerned because what Mr Qian appeared to be saying about freedom of speech, about freedom of the press, about freedom of assembly, seemed to be wholly at variance, wholly at odds, with the specific stipulations to use one of his phrases set out in Joint Declaration Article 3 sub-section (5) and the Basic Law Article 27.

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