10/20/2009, 00.00
CHINA – HONG KONG
Send to a friend

Hong Kong hands Tiananmen dissident over to China

For the first time, Hong Kong breaks with the ‘one country, two systems’ rule, which guarantees legal and civil rights to people on its territory. After his arrest, Zhou Yongjun disappeared for more than a year.
Hong Kong (AsiaNews/SCMP) – Hong Kong border police handed Zhou Yongjun (pictured) over to mainland authorities. A former leader of the student protest movement in Tiananmen Square, he was arrested in violation of the ‘one country, two systems’ principle that defines relations between mainland China and the former British Crown Colony.

Mr Zhou, a resident of the United States, last year arrived in Hong Kong from Macau on a Malaysian passport under an assumed name. Hong Kong authorities stopped and detained him at the border for “problems”. After two days in their custody, he was taken by car to the border with the mainland and handed over to Chinese authorities.

After weeks of hearing nothing about her husband, Zhou’s girlfriend (mother of their 18-year-old daughter) was called by a former inmate in a Shenzhen prison who told her that he was in jail. Four months later, another inmate said he also recognised Zhou as someone he had seen in prison. Yet, prison and court authorities in China deny knowing anything about his whereabouts.

Hong Kong’s government, headed by pro-Beijing Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, has also not made any comments about the case.

According to Zhou’s lawyer, the arrest by Hong Kong authorities and the transfer of his client to the mainland constitute a violation of the legal framework based on the principle of “one country, two systems’ that was established when the United Kingdom returned the former Crown Colony to the People’s Republic of China.

The agreement meant that for 50 years following Hong Kong’s handover in 1997, civil rights would continue to be protected in the territory.

For a leading immigration consultant in the city, the Zhou’s case is “unlawful, inexplicable and without precedent”.

For Zhang Yuewei, the former student leader’s girlfriend, it is an obvious “conspiracy to abuse his human rights”.

Last week she travelled to Hong Kong to raise awareness about Zhou’s plight. The last time she saw him was on 26 September of last year.

Zhou runs an employment agency and is a US green card holder. He travelled to the mainland because he wanted to “visit his family. His father had a stroke and is partially paralysed, and his mother has heart disease.”

Zhou fled to the United States in 1992, three years after the bloody crackdown of pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square.

He tried to re-enter the mainland in 1998 (through Hong Kong) but was caught, imprisoned and held for three years on illegal entry charges. In 2002, he went back to the United States.

After trying in vain to obtain a mainland visa, he bought a fake Malaysian passport.

According to an attorney who was able to see him in prison, he is charged with an unspecified “crime allegedly committed in Hong Kong”.

Zhou’s case raises several questions concerning Hong Kong, where Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen is facing calls for an official inquiry into the case.

Many Honk Kongers are in fact very concerned that cases like Zhou’s might be the start of a trend whereby the territory’s law is no longer there to protect them.

Indeed, mainland China and Hong Kong do not have an extradition treaty. Any crime committed in the territory, including immigration violations, should be tried locally or the alleged offender should be expelled to his or her country of origin.

TAGs
Send to a friend
Printable version
CLOSE X
See also
Margaret Ng: Democrats must have realistic goals to run in 'patriotic' elections
10/05/2021 13:27
Hong Kong: July 1st march for democracy called off
21/06/2021 09:43
Anti-extradition movement: over a quarter of more than 10 thousand arrested on trial
10/06/2021 09:35
Hong Kong like China: an official will decide who can enter and leave the territory
29/04/2021 09:31
Hong Kong, security law: 11 more leading democracy figures arrested
14/01/2021 09:08


Newsletter

Subscribe to Asia News updates or change your preferences

Subscribe now
“L’Asia: ecco il nostro comune compito per il terzo millennio!” - Giovanni Paolo II, da “Alzatevi, andiamo”