1991-12-31 11:07 INFORMATION SERVICES DEPT
852 521 7725 P.03/11
3 -
VMS
The Refugee Co-ordinator, Clinton Leeks, when reviewing 1991 and looking ahead to the new year, said that with the orderly retum programme. for Vietnamese working well;
he was confident that the huge burden of Vietnamese illegal immigra tion that HK had borne for more than 16 years would be solved within the next two to three years, the media reported prominently and extensively, with two papers using the story as the back-page lead and at least three papers using it as an inside-page lead. It was played up in headlines that in order to speed the screening process the Security Branch had started to recruit 100 immigration officers and more translators. Mr Leeks also disclosed that an additional Refugee Status Review Board would be established. number of reports highlighted the point raised by Mr Leeks that only 45 VMs arrived in the territory in the last two months, which was the lowest figure since early 1985. Stressing that the Vietnamese population was now reducing to 60,000, he hoped that the trend would accelerate during the course of 1992.
an
À
Mr Leeks also said that the third batch of about 60 involuntary VMs would be sent back to Vietnam at the end of January and it was hoped that some VMs who had come here before the signing of the British-Vietnamese agreement on mandatory return could be included in the list. When asked by reporters whether it was worthwhile for the Government to spend half of a million dollars for each flight in sending VMs back to Vietnam, Mr Leeks was quoted by TVB-Pearl as saying that since the move had stimulated about 5,000 VMs
to opt to
go home in the last three or four months, it was actually good value for money for HK taxpayers.
DEATH PENALTY
A Bill which aimed to abolish the death penalty in HK would be put to Legco in April, the media reported in good coverage. The Acting S for S, Ian Strachan, said yesterday that the Government was drafting the Bill in response to a motion in June in the Legislative Council which came out in favour of repealing the death penalty. If everything went smoothly, Mr Strachan expected that the Bill would come into effect. by the end of the Legco session in July.
A Government official was quoted by the media as saying that the Bill would be introduced into Legco with amendments to a number of ordinances and the death penalty would be replaced by mandatory or discretionary life or shortened jail terms. When asked whether the Government had consulted China on the issue, the official said that HK had its own separate legal system.
According to Sing Tao Daily, new Legco members Samuel Wong, Moses the Cheng and Frederick Fung were against /death penalty, but Howard Young
said that the death penalty should apply to those who had committed very serious crimes.
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.