amnesty international
INTERNATIONAL SECRETARIAT 1 Easton Street London WC1X 8DJ United Kingdom
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AKB 380/1
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3/1
June 1989
CORPORAL PUNISHMENT IN HONG KONG
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From 1981 to 1986, 79 people are reported to have been sentenced to a total of 270 strokes of the cane in Hong Kong. In 1987, one 17-year-old boy was sentenced to caning and eight people were caned in 1988. They included a 26-year-old man and seven boys aged between 13 and 16.
Those who receive this punishment are stripped naked from the waist down, force to bend over a wooden block or thick leather bar with their arms and legs secured with straps, and beaten by a prison guard using a long rattan cane. Those beaten often scream and sometimes bleed, a Hong Kong prison official acknowledged recently. The number of strokes is limited to 18 for adults and six for children under 14- years-old. Children can have their parents present at the caning.
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Under Hong Kong law, caning can be imposed for various offences, including possession of an offensive weapon, robbery, assault and rape. Under Section 33 of th Public Order Ordinance, magistrates are forced to impose either caning or six months in jail on people convicted of carrying an offensive weapon in a public place.
In recent years, caning has most often been used under Section 33 for possessio of an offensive weapon. However, two boys aged 14 and 15 were given the punishment in March 1988 for robbery and assault. This was believed to be the first time since 1985 that the punishment had been used under another section of the law. Another boy, aged 13, was sentenced to be caned in 1988 after being convicted of indecent assault.
Some Hong Kong magistrates have expressed their opposition to the continued use of caning in Hong Kong, describing this punishment as cruel and barbaric.
In 1988, it was reported that the Hong Kong Government was considering a draft bill to abolish corporal punishment as a sentencing option in Section 33 of the Public Order Ordinance. However, no progress seems to have been made so far. In January 1989, the Principal Assistant Secretary with the Security Branch, which oversees government legal policy, was quoted as saying that Hong Kong "found no need to change" the corporal punishment laws (New York Times, 25 January 1989).
Amnesty International considers that caning constitutes a form of cruel, inhumai or degrading treatment or punishment. The Human Rights Committee, in its general comment 7(16) on Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), stated that the prohibition [of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment] must extend to corporal punishment.
In November 1988, the Human Rights Committee stated that caning was against bot the "letter and the spirit" of the ICCPR and called on the Government of the United Kingdom to use its authority to outlaw the punishment in Hong Kong.
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