The Hindu : Revise policy, Hong Kong Govt. told

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 05, 2002

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International

Revise policy, Hong Kong Govt. told

HONG KONG JULY 4. The Hong Kong Government's campaign to deport thousands of mainland Chinese immigrants has drawn sharp criticism from a U.N. committee that believes families should not be split up, rights activists said on Thursday.

Groups including the London-based Amnesty International called on Hong Kong to pay attention to what the U.N. committee has been saying and "place human rights, family reunion and care for the downtrodden before profit and the market."

Hong Kong was returned from Britain to China five years ago, and immigration from the mainland has been one of the trickiest issues to confront the post-colonial government. Thousands of mainlanders want to come to Hong Kong to join relatives and seek out a better life, but Hong Kong says it can't take them all at once.

Following a major court case in January that cleared the Government to deport many migrants staying here illegally, officials have been rounding them up in batches — in raids on homes and during spot identity checks on the streets — and deporting them. Activists who support the migrants say the deportations deprive families of the right to live together, and they've complained to the U.N. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Geneva. The U.N. committee wrote a letter in May to the Chinese U.N. Ambassador in Geneva complaining that Hong Kong has been going against its recommendations to pay "the most careful attention to all of the human rights dimensions."

The letter urged Hong Kong to "undertake immediate measures for a just and humane solution to the problem of abode... .."

— AP

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