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April 1998

Hong Kong stands firm on anti-WTO protesters

Agence France Presse
January 9, 2006

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Hong Kong refused to give in to Korean lawmakers' calls Monday for the early release of anti-globalisation protesters held here since violent clashes with police during a WTO summit last month.

Secretary for Justice Wong Yan-lung said the 14 detainees, 11 of them militant South Korean peasant activists and unionists, would be dealt with according to the law and would get no special treatment.

"Hong Kong is a place where the rule of law is strongly upheld... The evidence is being carefully considered with as much expedition as is possible in the interests of justice," Wong said.

The detainees, who also include a Japanese, a Chinese and a Taiwanese activist, are on bail from a local court charged with unlawful assembly on December 17 when protesters clashed with police protecting the venue where World Trade Organization talks were being held.

Their bail conditions prevent them from returning home during the legal proceedings. They are next due in court Wednesday.

Wong's words came after a meeting with leading members of South Korea's parliament who arrived in Hong Kong Sunday to press the government to bring the trials to a swift conclusion.

"We are concerned that if this trial is extended, perhaps this will have a negative effect on relations between the citizens of Hong Kong and the citizens of Korea as well as the bilateral situation between Hong Kong and Korea," said lawmaker Kwon Young-ghil, president of the Democratic Labour Party and a member of Korea's National Assembly.

"This could become an international issue," he told reporters.

Wong said he had made an exception to normal protocol to meet the lawmakers "out of courtesy" but he had refused to discuss the case.

"I have listened carefully to their concerns. I did not engage in any discussion or negotiation on the case," he said.

The lawmakers visited the defendants Monday as 11 of them entered a fifth day of a hunger strike in protest against the charges.

South Korean activist leaders warned they would step up their effort to win the detainees' release, threatening to send hundreds of farmers and unionists to protest between January 20 and 22 if the trials were not concluded Wednesday.

"We don't want this problem to deepen," said Kyung Sik-moon, chairman of the militant Korean Peasants League at a protest, flanked by other supporters from various countries including Malaysia, Taiwan, Japan and Philippines.

"We might be forced to form an alliance around the world to carry out an all-out struggle. We ask for their release once again," he said.

Hong Kong People's Alliance Against WTO, an umbrella organisation for local anti-globalisation groups, said delegates would also be sent to Chinese embassies around the world should they not be released Wednesday.

On December 17, protesters broke through police cordons and tried to storm the venue where WTO ministers were meeting.

Police used pepper spray, fire hoses, tear gas and bean bag projectiles to fight off the demonstrators, who then staged a 14-hour face-off with more than 1,000 riot police. More than 900 people were temporarily detained.

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