The Minister, replying, said there had been some increase in 1977 in
the number of illegal immigrants returned. There had been
1400 in
the first nine months of 1977. There had been some reduction in the
number of young educated Chinese who try to leave.
He would arrange
for the statistics to be asembled and supplied. Reports indicated
that the punishment for defection was hard labour and public humiliation
rather than corporal or in any way violent. The criterion was that no
illegal immigrant would be sent back to the People's Republic of China if
it were believed that this would endanger their lives.
On interrogation procedure the Minister said that he would be seeing the Governor, Sir Murray Maclehose, next week and would ask him this question. The Minister said that he understood that illegal immigrants do
have the opportunity to have a legal adviser or friend present when they are interrogated. He gave an assurance that he would undertake examination
of this and ensure that this right, if it did not exist, would be guaranteed
in future.
On the fourth question the Minister said that in his opinion there
had been a transition to a stable government marginally more reasonable than
its predecessor. He believed it likely that the new government in Peking would very gradually become a little more tolerant than the one it had
replaced.
Mr Roper finally drew attention to a report on the traffic in persons in Hong Kong submitted in 1975 to the United Nations Working Group of Experts on Slavery (composed of members of the United Nations Sub- Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities)
copies of which had of course also been sent at the same time to the Foreign
and Commonwealth Office. No action had been taken on this report by the
United Nations. This was in line with UN inaction on the other reports sent to this Working Group by the Society. The report in question consisted of a verbatim extract from a Hong Kong Police manual on Triad Societies,
followed by a comment by the Society.
The Minister said he would ask the Governor for information
this question too.
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