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Joyce Ng

A notification mechanism between Hong Kong and mainland China over the detention of residents should be broadened to cover more mainland law enforcement agencies with a time limit set for notifying each other, lawmakers say.
They spoke as Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying wrote to Beijing to ask for a review of the reciprocal notification system, which failed in the cases of the missing booksellers.
Delegations, notifications and a formal letter: CY Leung’s three-pronged strategy for settling bookseller row
The controversial mechanism was introduced in 2001 after mainland authorities detained dozens of Hongkongers without informing the Hong Kong government.
It covers five types of case taken by four mainland agencies: public security bodies, customs, procuratorates and the Ministry of State Security.
The criminal measures include summonses for questioning, placing suspects on bail, residence under surveillance, detention and arrest.
Under the rules, the authorities should state which agency is in charge, its location, the officer in charge and the reason for the arrest or detention.
Lam Wing-kee, the bookseller who returned to Hong Kong and revealed what had happened to him last week, said he was taken to Ningbo and was being investigated by the secretive central special investigative unit, which is not covered by the mechanism.
Booksellers: claims vs counter-claims
Former security minister Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, who signed the agreement to set up the mechanism in 2000, said the review could cover three aspects.
“There is no hard and fast timeline for giving notice. There should be periodic reports and notices to the HKSAR government as to what stage they have reached [with the investigation],” Ip said.
The review should also lead to the mainland authorities publicising the mechanism all over the country so that each province and city was aware of it, she added. In the booksellers’ cases, only the Guangdong authorities had contacted Hong Kong officials.

Ip also said the mechanism’s scope should be broadened to include more mainland agencies that have power to detain people. But she would not comment on the special investigation team, saying it was “a very vague term” and she was not sure which agency Lam was referring to.
The Democratic Party’s spokesman on security matters, James To Kun-sun, said the mechanism should cover “all kinds of official custody”.
But Starry Lee Wai-king, chairwoman of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, said the mechanism might not work in politically sensitive cases, as the booksellers’ cases had shown.
Three cigarettes and a long wait at Hong Kong train station pushed bookseller into turning away from border
In the past five years, the mainland reported cases involving 3,671 Hong Kong residents. In about 70 per cent of the cases, the mainland notified Hong Kong offficials within 15 days.
Meanwhile, Mary Lau Man-yee, wife of a veteran journalist detained on the mainland a decade ago, said Leung’s predecessor implemented the system better.
Her husband Ching Cheong, a Straits Times correspondent, was jailed for spying for Taiwan in 2005 and released in 2008.
In May 2005, a month after Ching disappeared on the mainland and a day after the media published interviews with Lau, the Foreign Ministry announced that Ching was being held.
She then received a notice from the mainland authorities through the Hong Kong government, telling her that her husband was under house arrest.
Lau said at that time, a senior official from the Security Bureau kept in close contact with her.
“The official met us almost once every week,” she recalled. “Sometimes he went to the mainland prison [where Ching was kept] to drink with officers there, so we knew whether [Ching] was ill and how he was being treated.”
“[Former chief executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen] handled the matter very carefully,” she said. “In comparison, I feel Leung has been paying lip service over the booksellers’ cases.”


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Hong Kong bookseller disappearances

Hong Kong lawmakers call for review of scope of notification system in wake of bookseller detention cases

The detention in mainland China of Lam Wing-kee has raised all sorts of questions. Photo: David Wong

New People's Party's Legislator Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee meets media with other DAB members after the policy address by the Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying at the Legco Chamber in Tama. 13JAN16 SCMP/ K. Y. Cheng

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They feel the system is not working well and want it expanded to cover more mainland Chinese agencies and incorporate more updates
