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Cutting dated
ECONOMIST
19th MAY 1973 19
Britain and Hongkong
The Queen's hand
FROM OUR HONGKONG CORRESPONDENT
The Queen's reprieve this week for a convicted Chinese murderer in Hong- kong has already stiffened the growing popular demand by the Chinese com- munity in the colony for restoration of the rope and the lash. The Queen's intervention has unfortunately coin- cided with the launching of a tough anti-crime campaign here as homicide, armed robbery and Tong terrorism erupt in the colony's once safe streets.
The issue has become basically racial. Most of the colony's white liberals are resisting a return to the gallows and insisting that Hongkong dutifully and constitutionally adopt Britain's abolition. of capital punishment. But Chinese intellectuals and government officials, together with communist party leaders, are demanding the revival, of the traditional Chinese death-for-a-death. The governor, Sir Murray Maclehose, broke the pattern when he refused a reprieve for a typically callous Triad (Tong, or secret society) murderer, who then appealed to the Queen. Despite the protests of the Hongkong bar association, the colony's chief justice, Sir Ivor Rigby, distinguished for his personal leniency on appeal, sup- ported the governor's position.
Leaders of the Chinese community are now striking back against the local British liberals and are organising a million-signature petition for the mandatory revival of hanging for murder. The colony's government is also introducing stiffer sentences for habitual criminals and confessed Triad members. The Queen's intervention is likely to produce an angry and embar- rassing Chinese reaction.
Sir Murray Maclehose is confronted with another momentous ruling. A Chinese woman has been sentenced to hang, together with four gangsters, for beating a man to death. She is the wealthiest madam in Hongkong's brothel business. If she is executed she will be the first woman to be hanged in the colony in 30 years.
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MAINS
HKCK 14/10
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Ms 24%
2415
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