By Sarah Cook

Epoch Times Legal Correspondent

Apr 27, 2007

Falun Gong adherents in a sitting protest at Queen Status Square in Hong Kong, November 17, 2003. Four Taiwanese citizens filed a petition in Hong Kong on Monday, appealing against a High Court judge's decision that human rights lawyers say reflects the degree to which the territory's judicial system has degenerated since its handover to China. (clearwisdom.net)

Four Taiwanese citizens filed a petition in Hong Kong Monday, appealing against a High Court judge's decision that human rights lawyers say reflects the degree to which the territory's judicial system has degenerated since its handover to China.

"The [High Court] ruling demonstrated that justice is nearly dead in Hong Kong," said Theresa Chu, a Taiwanese human rights lawyer and one of the plaintiffs, speaking at a press conference in Taipei last week. "China's dirty hand has interfered in Hong Kong, which used to have values of freedom."

In February 2003, Chu and over 80 other Falun Gong practitioners who had traveled to Hong Kong to attend a conference and peaceful demonstration were denied entry upon arrival. They were informed that this was because they had been placed on a "watch list" for posing a security risk. Two of the applicants were seized by immigration officers, wrapped in a blanket, and transported in a horizontal position onto a flight back to Taiwan.

"We are not threats to national security," says Chu. "None of us has a criminal record. Our only common characteristic is that we're Falun Gong adherents."

Falun Gong, a traditional Chinese exercise and spiritual practice, has been banned and brutally persecuted in China since 1999, but remains lawful and practiced openly in Hong Kong.

At the time of the incident, the Hong Kong authorities denied the four Taiwanese access to information about the "watch list" and how they were put on there. This raised suspicion that the decision to bar their entry was at the request of the Chinese authorities.

Adding to the opaqueness of the Director of Immigration's decision was the fact that the data about the applicants' listing on the "watch list" and the documents providing the reasoning for it were reportedly destroyed shortly after the incident occurred.

Given the questionable circumstances, in April 2003, Chu and three other Taiwanese who were denied entry filed a petition seeking judicial review of the Director of Immigration's decision. They argued that the director had acted unlawfully and violated their freedom of religion, contrary to Hong Kong's domestic and international legal obligations.

Also petitioning were Falun Gong practitioners living in Hong Kong, who claimed that their freedom of religion was violated because they were prevented from developing relations with fellow believers from outside the territory, a right guaranteed by the territory's Basic Law.

In spite of Immigration's inability to produce tangible evidence to support their claims that the plaintiffs were denied entry because they were thought to pose a security risk and not based on their religious affiliation, on March 23, Judge Michael Hartmann refused to grant the plaintiffs the relief they sought.

In a statement released to the press, Terri Marsh, Executive Director of the Human Rights Law Foundation and a colleague of Chu's, criticized the judgment.

"The Court's failure to ascertain the reason for what appears on its face as religiously motivated biased conduct on the part of the Executive Branch warrants immediate reversal," said Marsh. This is what the appeal petition submitted Monday seeks to do.

The absence of the documents listing the reasoning for the applicants' placement on the "watch list" appeared to contribute to Hartman's decision to give the government the benefit of the doubt. This was despite the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) history of passing Falun Gong practitioners' names to foreign governments, alleging a security risk in order to keep them from peacefully protesting atrocities committed against fellow believers in China.

According to Marsh, this past behavior provides strong evidence that Chu and the others were placed on the "watch list" at the CCP's behest.

"Their experience is not unusual," she said. "Based upon the U.S. congressional testimony of a former [Chinese] official, it is clear that the Chinese authorities have extended their effort to persecute and intimidate Falun Gong practitioners, and to restrict their right to protest against Chinese government policies of repression and torture, to practitioners outside of China."

In 2002, dozens of Falun Gong practitioners were prevented from entering Iceland to join peaceful demonstrations during a visit by former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin. Other lawyers have expressed concern over what this indicates about the independence of Hong Kong's judiciary since the territory was returned to China. Human rights lawyer Kenneth Chiu told the Taipei Times : "Although there was no democracy in Hong Kong before then either, it did have law and order."

Source http://en.epochtimes.com/news/7-4-27/54595.html

Posting date: 4/30/2007
Original article date: 4/30/2007
Category: News & Media Reports

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