Reinforce detainee notification system, say critics following disappearance of Hong Kong booksellers
Hong Kong, mainland governments urged to put notification period in black and white and give detainees certain rights
The reciprocal notification mechanism between the Hong Kong police and their mainland counterparts needs to be reviewed and strengthened, critics say, as the exact whereabouts of the five booksellers who vanished mysteriously since October remain unknown.
The critics, who campaigned for the mechanism before it was introduced in 2001, said the agreement needed to set out the notification period in black and white because the existing 14-day requirement was merely an unwritten rule.
The nature of the agreement should also be revised so that the detainees would be guaranteed basic human rights while in custody on the mainland, they said.
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But no matter how perfect the mechanism became, they said, it would not matter if the mainland authorities failed to respect it.
“The 14-day requirement is not written in black and white. The police told me earlier that it was an unwritten rule. I was told that the Hong Kong police had always been able to notify their mainland counterparts within 14 days ever since it was launched,” said Democratic Party lawmaker James To Kun-sun.
Under the mechanism, the notification needs to include the date of detention and location, the suspected offence and the enforcement agency involved.
The establishment of the now hotly criticised mechanism was prompted after dozens of Hong Kong residents were detained on the mainland at the time, most notably Lok Yuk-shing, supervisor of a trading firm.
Lok was detained by the authorities in Dongsheng, Inner Mongolia, in 1998 for 487 days after his employer failed to pay an outstanding bill of HK$4 million for an order with an Inner Mongolian cashmere manufacturer.