PUC
Trades Union Congress
Congress House Great Russell Street
Bee (140
London WC1B 3LS
01-636 4030
The Rt. Hon. Sir Geoffrey Howe, MP, Secretary of State for Foreign
and Commonwealth Affairs,
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Downing Street,
.London SW1.
Your reference:
Our reference: I/NDW/MW/CT
Date: April 3, 1987.
Dear Sir Geoffrey,
Hong Kong
The Hong Kong Journalists Association has alerted us to the threat to a democratic freedoms arising in the Colony from the adoption by the Legislative Council of the Public Order (Amendment) Bill on March 11. Our General Council have maintained longstanding contacts with trade union organisations in Hong Kong and you may recall that we approached you in 1985 about the draft agreement with the People's Republic of China and provision in it for the application in Hong Kong of the ILO Conventions proclaiming basic human rights in employment.
It seems to us that Public Order (Amendment) Bill could seriously restrict press freedom by giving ill-defined and uncontrolled discretion to the authorities to use the law against journalists and others. The authorities would be in the position of compelling the authors of publications to prove that what they had written was true, and the Bill could certainly be used as an instrument to intimidate and muzzle the press by the authorities now and after 1997.
I sincerely hope that the Government will not allow Section 6 of the Bill to come into effect.
HKD 301/1
RECENTO -EGISTRY
2 3 APR 1987
*FICER
IND
mik
Yours sincerely,
Nomon
General Secretary.
millis
97/4
General Secretary: Norman Willis Deputy General Secretary: Kenneth Graham, OBE
Assistant General Secretaries: Roy Jackson and David Lea, OBE
132
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