Hong Kong activist Father Franco Mella yesterday called on the Vietnamese
government to spare the lives of 2 elderly Hongkongers on death row in the
country.
With support from Amnesty International, the Italian Catholic priest launched
the appeal outside Mong Kok East station. More than 500 people had signed by
last night.
The 2 men were part of a group of 5 ethnic Chinese arrested in Vietnam's
Guangnam province in May 2008 for trafficking more than 7 tonnes of cannabis
resin.
All 5 - now aged between 57 and 67 - received the death penalty in May 2010.
"The men can be executed at any moment," said Mella, who has rallied against
the use of the death penalty across the globe, particularly on the mainland.
"Hong Kong does not have the death penalty, so it should try to convince the
Vietnamese government not to kill the men."
Between 2003 and June last year, at least 75 Hong Kong citizens were sentenced
to death or executed abroad, according to Amnesty International figures.
Connie Chan Man-wai, a senior campaigner with the rights group, said the drive
to attract support would continue for two weeks. The petition will then be
taken to the Vietnamese consulate in Wan Chai.
One of the convicted Hongkongers, 67-year-old Ngan Chiu-kuen, had been
ill-treated by the prison authorities and denied access to medical services
despite his failing health, the group said.
Mella, who first came to Hong Kong in 1974, is a well-known human rights
activist. He first took up the cause of the city's homeless and impoverished,
at one point joining a squatter camp in Diamond Hill.
Since then he has championed a variety of causes with some success. He is
particularly known for helping boat families in the former Yau Ma Tei typhoon
shelter in the 1980s, and as a tireless campaigner for right of abode for
cross-border families.
He once went without food for 5 days in support of 7 men who were jailed over a
fatal fire in Immigration Tower that started during an abode-seekers' protest
in 2000.
In 2011 he was denied a visa to visit the mainland, a decision that Mella put
down to troubled relations between Beijing and the Vatican.
Source: South China Morning Post, Sept. 21, 2014
