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Leung Chun-ying (CY Leung)
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Protesters rallied against the boy's bid to stay in Causeway Bay on Monday. Photo: Sam Tsang

Protests against undocumented boy, 12, ‘damaged social order’, CY Leung says

Chief executive says groups that protested against undocumented mainlander's effort to stay in city were 'destroying social order'

Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying condemned "radical" activists yesterday for "destroying social order" by protesting against an undocumented mainland boy's effort to stay in the city.

Leung questioned whether the activists would be so concerned if the boy, 12-year-old Siu Yau-wai, was not from the mainland.

Yau-wai had lived in the city illegally for nine years, according to his grandmother, Chow Siu-shuen, 67. Chow brought him to Hong Kong at age three after his parents abandoned him, she said at a media conference organised by Federation of Trade Unions lawmaker Chan Yuen-han on Thursday.

The case sparked several protests at the weekend, including one where about 40 people stormed Confucian Tai Shing Primary School in Wong Tai Sin, which had expressed interest in admitting the boy.

Then on Monday, more than 100 protesters marched from Causeway Bay to Immigration Department headquarters in Wan Chai, demanding the boy be returned to the mainland.

Leung emphasised the authorities would handle the case according to law.

"A small minority of radicals expressed their opinion by storming [buildings] or destroying social order. We should reprimand these actions," he said, when asked whether the government might succumb to pressure by the activists.

"If [Yau-wai] were not from the mainland … would these radicals adopt the same approach?"

However, Baggio Leung Chung-heng, convenor of the Occupy splinter group Youngspiration, and Hong Kong Indigenous spokesman Ray Wong Toi-yeung told Cable TV the boy's origin was not their main concern.

"The precedent should not be set, regardless of whether the person was from the mainland," Baggio Leung said.

Secretary for Education Eddie Ng Hak-kim confirmed his bureau had received Yau-wai's application for a place in a government school.

But former security minister Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee said government schools should not accommodate an undocumented child unless they had to stay in the city for reasons such as litigation.

On Monday, activist group Valiant Frontier protested at Shun Lee Estate in Ngau Tau Kok, where the boy and his grandmother were believed to have been living. The pair have apparently moved out.

The group's spokesman, who introduced himself as Ah Sing, responded to questions on RTHK yesterday as to why they did not go to the immigration authorities. "We have to 'kill one to warn 100' who are abusing loopholes in the system to get the right of abode," he said.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: CY hits out atbid by 'radicals'to block boy
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