From: robbieb@gn.apc.org
Newsgroups: soc.culture.china
Subject: British refuse Chinese Asylum
Date: 4 Sep 92 23:36:00 GMT
Nf-ID: #N:gn:1414700001:000:3513
Nf-From: gn.UUCP!robbieb    Sep  5 00:36:00 1992


Tibet Information Netwrok 7 Beck Road London E8 4re UK
fax: -44 -(0)81 985 4751

TIN China News Update:  4 September, 1992  23.53 hrs

UK Refuses Asylum for Chinese Dissident
---------------------------------------

A Chinese dissident who wrote poems used by students in  Tiananmen
Square in 1989 has been refused asylum by the British Government
and may be deported from Hong Kong tomorrow to China.

The 29 year old writer, warned by colleagues that police were
searching for her, hid with a friend in Southern China until last
December, when she found a Chinese smuggler who took her and the
friend to Hong Kong.

The Hong Kong authorities refused asylum to both women, without
giving reasons, and have held them in Hong Kong's Victoria prison
for the last nine months.

Late this afternoon (4pm Friday 4th September) the British Home
office announced that the women, Liu Yijung and Lin Lin, would
also not be allowed to come to the UK.

The timing of the Home Office decision means that lawyers may not
be able to approach a judge for a judicial review until after the
week-end, by which time the women could have been returned to
China.

"The Home Office's timing smacks of an attempt to deny the women
their last chance of avoiding deportation", said the women's
lawyer, Ms Pamela Baker, who came to London last week to make the
application to the Home Office.

Previously Britain has granted asylum to Chinese intellectuals who
were involved in the Tiananmen protests, and today's decision
suggests a marked softening in British criticism of China's human
rights record.

Last September John Major announced a tough line on human rights
when he visited Beijing, but this move is thought to have been
opposed by some Whitehall advisers.

Ms Baker said this evening that she had no idea why the claims had
been rejected, adding that the two women's stories had been
corroborated by several sources and were supported by Amnesty
International.

"Asylum applications in Hong Kong ought to be investigated by
Britain, as the sovereign state, and in this case they can't
possibly have had time to do that possibly", said Ms Baker, who
made the application to the Home Office last Friday, only one week
ago. "There's no way they can have gone to sources who know the
girls and who could have confirmed their accounts", she added

Asiawatch, a leading human rights organisation, said this evening
that the women would be in danger if they were deported.

"Pro-democracy activists forced to return to China face the threat
of lengthy prison terms under extremely harsh conditions", said
Sidney Jones, executive director of the New York-based
organisation.

The women could still escape deportation if a Hong Kong judge on
Monday allows their case to go for judicial review, a procedure
which has only been allowed in Hong  Kong since the colonies' new
Bill of Rights came into effect this June.

The writer, who goes under the name Liu Yijung, founded a
newspaper on the Chinese island of Hainan which was investigated
by the police in 1989 after it published articles criticising
Government corruption. She later wrote poems supporting the
pro-democracy movement which were circulated by the students in
Tiananmen Square.

Last year a female student was sent to a labour camp by the
Chinese after she was forcibly deported from Tokyo when after her
asylum claim was refused by the Japanese Government. Lin Guizhen
had taken part in demonstrations in Fuzhou, in Fujian province,
during the 1989 movement.

- end -