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SCMP Reporter

Where Amnesty stands on abortion issue

In her letter ('Mass killings go on unchecked,' June 12), Rosa Chan said that while Amnesty International was doing a good job, it overlooked the rights of millions of human lives lost each year through abortion.

We would like to clarify our policy on sexual and reproductive rights. We  have an ongoing campaign to stop violence against women and  to ensure women and men can exercise their sexual and reproductive rights free from coercion, discrimination and violence. It is also a response to the suffering and to the human rights violations caused by abuses of these rights which Amnesty InternationaI, as a human rights organisation, cannot remain silent or blind to.

We recognise the right of states to impose reasonable limitations on access to abortion services. But we call for access to quality services for management of complications arising from abortion. States  must provide access to legal and safe  abortion in the case of an unwanted pregnancy as a result of rape,  or incest, or if the pregnancy  poses a grave risk to the woman.  We want comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services for women and men, so they can get adequate information. We recognise that such information can help prevent  unwanted pregnancies and abortions.

Since the launch of our Stop Violence Against Women campaign in 2004, we have exposed  terrible injustices including rape and incest and sexual violence as a weapon of armed conflict and other forms of sexual violence that result in unwanted pregnancies.

These abuses are widespread.  We support women who wish to end unwanted pregnancies resulting from sexual violence by pressing for the option of safe, accessible abortion to be made available and support women who seek treatment for complications.

We likewise  oppose the criminalisation of abortion to ensure women are not sent to prison for seeking or having abortions. Amnesty International's work focuses on situations in which the threats to women are real.

Our policy does not focus on aspects of abortion and other medical services that are not related to grave human rights abuses, nor provide a platform for Amnesty International to work on other aspects of abortion.

Milabel Cristobal Amar, director, Amnesty International Hong Kong Section

Harbour faces grim future

You commented on efforts to save Queen's Pier ('Focus fight on heritage sites that can be saved,' May 10).

You say that any campaign to save the Star Ferry and Queen's piers 'should have started in a timely manner, not when the demolition crews moved in'.

While I agree that we should also focus on other sites which can be preserved, I disagree that nothing was done in a timely manner. The government just chose not to listen.

We should  not forget all the effort, time and money that went into lawsuits to prevent the government from reclaiming our beautiful harbour and turning it into a river. The government claimed there was an urgent need to ease the traffic conditions in Central and a bypass was 'absolutely necessary. As a result, the government handed a  death penalty to our Star Ferry and Queen's piers.  However,  we should not forget all the suggestions  and proposals that were put to the administration to ease congestion through other means and how they were ignored, as officials insisted on a six-lane bypass.

All means were pursued to try and prevent this from happening, I honestly cannot see what good this  bypass will do if there is further property development  on the reclaimed land, which will  lead to more congestion and pollution.

I suppose when that becomes a reality, the administration can reclaim more land and eventually connect Hong Kong Island with Kowloon.

Officials will probably find that no one is against this decision, because by then there will be nothing left to preserve.

Penny Shen, Happy Valley

Desecration is appalling

May the nameless official, department or organisation responsible for the desecration of the Statue Square pavilions have the courage to let us know who or what he (or she) is.

Is this not a public open space?

Who has decreed that it should be despoiled and commercialised in this way?  How can we possibly go on parroting we are Asia's World City when we allow things like this to happen?

Perhaps when Queen's Pier is re-erected this will make another fine place for a few similar signs, the pavilions and the pier are about the same vintage!

David Akers-Jones, Mid-Levels

Pay  rise keeps best talent

I can hardly fathom why your correspondent Jimmy Lau  is indignant at the civil service pay rise (June 21).

In fact, the pay rise has a positive effect on the community. First, employers in the private sector who wish to snatch bright graduates are likely to increase wages accordingly.

Second, many civil servants are  seriously underpaid. Teachers in local schools, for example, are paid at least one-third less than their counterparts in international schools, though the former have a much heavier workload. The pay rise can definitely help retain professional teachers in local schools.

For years, the administration has had difficulty in attracting talented accountants and lawyers to work in the government. One of the reasons is that its remunerations are far from attractive, when compared with those offered by renowned accounting and law firms.

A  5 per cent pay increase, though not much, is better than nothing.

H. L. Yuen, Yuen Long

Group's skewed view of history

I was interested by the remarks of  Nariaki Nakayama, head of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party group on wartime historical issues and education,  which claims that no more than 20,000 people, rather than the widely accepted minimum of 150,000 to 200,000, were killed in the Rape of Nanking ('Rape of Nanking exaggerated, say lawmakers,' June 20).

He said: 'We  cannot ignore propaganda trying to portray the Japanese as brutal people, so we decided to examine primary documents'.

In other words,  Mr Nakayama  and his colleagues had already decided what conclusion they were going to reach before they looked at the documents.

Philip Snow, Discovery Bay

Pollution wars

British foreign secretary Margaret Beckett says that retired US generals 'are about as far as you can get from the old stereotype of a tree-hugging environmentalist', following their claim that projected climate change poses a serious threat to US national security.

It is  natural such a claim should have come from the ex-military. If emission from a private car is  unfriendly to the environment, when a car uses annually a mere fraction of the fuel for an hourly flight of a single gun-blazing  helicopter, the ex-generals should know how much military actions anywhere in the world are contributing towards adverse climate change.

Would it be an exaggeration to suggest that peace in the Middle East  would help to counter the global warming trend somewhat?

Tony Ngan, Causeway Bay



Letters