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Hong Kong:
[Lord Brockway.]
[LORDS]
He always takes the utmost care in stating facts and explaining them to this House; but I do not think there is any doubt that he was misinformed on this matter. I have in my hand a letter from Councillor Elsie Elliott, and she says this:
"I personally bailed out 30 persons from the Central Police Station. I examined and signed the bail papers for three of the children, aged 7, 8 and 12. On the papers I signed it stated clearly in English that they were being charged with ' unlaw- ful assembly', and each one bore the thumbprint of the child whose name appeared on it, indicating that the charge had been read to the child. I heard the police inform each child individually to attend the adult court at Causeway Bay next morning (8th January). When the 12-year-old boy said he could not go as he had to go to school, he was told he must attend court.
At the time, I protested against such small children being charged with offences they did not understand, and against putting small children in an adult court. Mr. Holliday, who seemed to be in charge of the operation, said that children are responsible in law from the age of 7 and that the charges must stand.
I think it was the Magistrate who objected to the charges next day; no credit is due to the police or the Government for having arrested children who did not even know what was going on ".
My Lords, I do not think anyone will dispute that statement from Councillor Elliott-missionary, educationalist, the voice of the people, given a distinguished award in 1976 for her achievements in social welfare and awarded the CBE last year by Her Majesty the Queen. She is a responsible person, and, no one who knows her can doubt that on this matter she has told the truth. The children were charged, and it was only through the intervention of the magistrate the follow- ing day that those charges were with- drawn. I pause to ask: Is it really tenable that in Hong Kong a child of seven should be held responsible in law?
It is often suggested that this is just an agitation by the boatmen concerned and a few others. I have had a letter from the Ecumenical Community Development Project, with members of the Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist and Roman Catholic Churches, of the Salvation Army and the Church of Christ in China, thanking me for having raised this matter in the House. They say:
"The issue is not only of great importance to the boat people themselves in their quest for resettlement but has grave implications for the civic rights of residents in this city".
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Arrest of Petitioners
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I believe this event, distressing as it has been, will be important and will have three results. First, greater care in the future will be taken in the application of the law against processions and assemblies. Secon- dly, there must be a reconsideration of the age when a child becomes responsible in law, now seven years. Thirdly, be- cause of the publicity which has been obtained, there will be a resettlement of the boat people by the provision of housing for them. I ask for an inquiry to be made into the circumstances of the arrest of the 76-and not only that but, more impor- tantly, into the conditions under which the boatmen and their families live, in order to facilitate the three results I have mentioned.
7.39 p.m.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, I always approach the solution of distant problems with more diffidence than I do those close at hand. It is more difficult to come at the facts. However, I know Hong Kong and I have apprised myself of some of the facts. I always admire the motivation of the noble Lord, Lord Brockway. I am not entirely certain that I follow him through the whole of this argument this evening, but I would endorse his view of preliminary to what I say. the work of the present Governor, as a
'It seems that we are looking at three questions. We are looking at the parti- cular incident which resulted in the arrest to which the noble Lord has drawn the attention of the House; we are looking at the conditions which gave rise to it, not only in that flotilla of boats but in Hong Kong as a whole, and we are looking at a specific question of the responsibility of 7-year-old children in law. If I may take them in that order, 'as touches the arrest itself, as I understand it,'the assem- bly, which was quite a large one, which preceded the setting off of 76 people in two buses, was illegal. It was in fact the latest in a series of such assemblies which, in a crowded and cramped com- munity such as Hong Kong, which is much more like a rabbit warren than a city in the sense in which we mean it in this House, looking at London and Paris, is a serious matter in itself.
I understand that the first time any objection was made formally by the authorities, in the shape of the police,
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