Human Rights Issues -- March 2002

Falun Gong protesters charged for obstruction (March 16, 2002) (Article 21)

The release of the Draft Code of Practice on monitoring and Personal Data Privacy at work (March 9, 2002) (Article 17)

Setup of the 4-member group to handle complaints against racial discrimination (March 15, 2002) (Article 4)

Protesters who tainted SAR flags found guilt (March 13, 2002) (Article 19)

Falun Gong protesters charged for obstruction (March 16, 2002) (Article 21)

Sixteen Falug Gong members were charged with obstruction by protesting outside the Beijing Liaison Office, which was the first time that the Falun Gong practitioner had been prosecuted in Hong Kong. The senior prosecutor, Ernest CHEUNG Yan-ming alleged that the sit-in and hanging banners of the protesters obstructed an area outside the Liaison office and to the road users.

The release of the Draft Code of Practice on monitoring and Personal Data Privacy at work (March 9, 2002) (Article 17)

To protect the privacy of the employees at work, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data had released the draft code of practice on monitoring and personal data for public consultation. In the draft code of practice, the Office suggested that the employers were allowed to have surveillance towards the employees during at work providing that it was reasonable and the employees had already informed.

The draft code had the following main points:
1. The employers should not abuse the power of monitoring.
2. The employers had to state clearly on the purpose of the monitoring, the information collected in the course of monitoring and the way of handling those collected information.
3. The monitoring should be carried out at the high-risk areas but not all areas.
4. Only the times of the telephone contact, the duration of using internet or the name of the email address can be monitored but not the content itself.
5. Secret monitoring can only be carried out after concrete criminal acts are found and strictly time limit should be imposed.
6. Only appointed officers are allowed to handle those supervised information.
7. Employees can read and amend any recording related to their own personal data.

The draft code also listed out the scope of monitoring, which including videotaping, wire-tapping, monitoring the email account and the content of browsing the internet. It was suggested that. The consultation period lasted for three months and ended on June 2002.

The Legislator Mr. LEE Cheuk-yan criticized that the code of practice as it can let the employee have the right to know, but not the right to oppose the monitoring. On the other hand, Mrs. YUNG Ma Shan-yee, the chairperson of the Association of the employers for female migrants' worker, worried that the migrant workers would abuse the code of practice, which made the prevention of child being abused become impossible.

Setup of the 4-member group to handle complaints against racial discrimination (March 15, 2002) (Article 4)

Under the strong pressure from the general public and human rights groups, the Home Affairs Bureau has setup a 4-member race relation unit to enhance services to ethnic minorities and newly arrivals. The Unit had prepared a hotline for enquiries and complaints on racial discrimination. The number of complaints related to racial discrimination received by the Equal Opportunity Commission and Home Affairs Bureau are as followings:

However, Legislative Councilor Ms Cindy HO Sau-lan criticized that the Government only put a little step against racial discrimination after heavily criticized by international community but it was not enough. She commented that the Government should not get rid of the responsibility of legislation against racial discrimination and carry it out as soon as possible.

Protesters who tainted SAR flags found guilt (March 13, 2002) (Article 19)

Two demonstrators of the April 5th action, Mr. LEUNG Kwok-hung and Mr. KOU Sze-yiu, who are charged of tainting the flag of the Hong Kong SAR during the petition, are found guilt by the court. Both of the defendants are charged of insulting of the regional flag on May 2001.

Mr. LEUNG, one of the accused persons, claimed that the national flag ordinance and the regional flag ordinance violated the Basic Law, the Chinese Constitution Law and the International Human Rights Covenants. He criticized that he merely used the peaceful way to express his political views and he should not be punished by this law. It is an irresponsible act for the court to find him guilt.

On the contrary, the court ruled that the SAR flag ordinance was in line with the Basic Law and the SAR Government had the legitimate interest to protect the flag. As the accused had committed the same offences on February 2002 that they had committed it again within the period of give security for good behavior, his penalty would be heavier.

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