HK Govt to take action to repatriate ROA claimants
( 2002-04-13 11:54 ) (8 )

The Hong Kong government will continue to take appropriate action to repatriate unsuccessful right of abode claimants in accordance with the law, a Security Bureau spokesman said Friday.

Declining to comment on operational details of individual cases, the spokesman said at a media briefing that questions over the location of interception of unsuccessful claimants by the law- enforcement agencies, such as whether it occurred outdoors or indoors, were misguided as their failure to address the really important issues.

"The important issues are whether the persons intercepted have the right to stay in Hong Kong and whether the law-enforcement agencies concerned have acted in accordance with the law in intercepting and removing them from Hong Kong," he said.

"In all cases in which interception and removal had taken place, the subjects did not have the right to stay and there was no legal impediment barring their removal," he added.

He refuted a claim that the administration had undertaken not to make house arrests.