TNAG-0912-FCO40-1122-Policy-on-housing-and-resettlement-in-Hong-Kong-1979 — Page 80

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with the case until the children were discharged. Some magistrates at least know how to draw the line at charging children under this pernicious Ordinance.

Social workers, students and a Catholic missionary who accompanied the boat people to assist them and to keep order, were also arrested, charged, found guilty, and put on good behaviour bonds for eighteen months. The boat

people themselves were found guilty but were discharged without bond or record-

Those fine young people now have a criminal record. The sentence was obviously

intended to prevent them taking any further part in helping the poorest of

the poor.

"A further incident occurred on 27th. May, 1979. A private landlord

obtained a court order to evict seven squatter families from land which he

had bought several years earlier, and where the squatters had been living for ten to twenty years. Agreement on compensation and a removal date had been

reached by the two sides, but before this agreement was put into effect, the

police arrived with tear gas to smoke the people out of their homes. 24 were

arrested and charged with unlawful assembly. Some of them were not involved

in the clearance but had run out of their homes for fear of the teargas which filled the homes of some not scheduled for eviction. Some were beaten. The

case is pending. Information from the District Office indicates that the

landlord is not permitted to use the land he has wrested from the squatters

because it is scheduled for Government use. The reason for the clearance

requires investigation.

These are only a few examples to show how people with a grievance are silenced by the intimidation of the Ordinance, used selectively.

Even worse is the treatment if a political ideology enters into the protest. In 1979 a small group of young people calling themselves "The Revolutionary Marxist League", which gains little sympathy as yet from the people of Hong Kong because no one is clear about the issues it takes up,

protested before a leftist Chinese office against what they called "Lack

of democracy in China". Without in any way sympathising with the cause,

one wonders why such a small number of persons was dealt with so ruthlessly.

They were arrested and charged with unlawful assembly, found guilty and

The Cube imprisoned. They now complain of their treatment peisen, where they

claim to have been isolated and refused permission to read newspapers.

It is clear, therefore, that people are not being charged and

imprisoned for lawbreaking, but for the causes for which they stand. The matter well deserves the attention of Amnesty International. To back up thie claim of political repression, the following information is relevant. When the boat people were arrested in February, the policeman in charge of the operation was asked why he took such drastic steps, even against small

children. He replied that too many people were now taking petitions to

the Governor, and the police were under instructions to put a stop to it.

The Public Ordinance is therefore contrary to human rights, and the

Hong Kong Government should be reminded of its responsibility under the United Nations' Declaration of Human Rights. Of no law should it be said "Any

police officer could, IF HE WERE SO MINDED, exercise his power."

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