China should halt the execution of Hong Kong residents...

China should halt the execution of Hong Kong residents convicted of capital offences, an alliance of civic groups fighting the mainland's death penalty said in a petition presented to the SAR [Special Administrative Region] Security Bureau.
The call by the Joint Committee for the Abolition of the Death Penalty came after the mainland Ministry of Public Security announced that 12 Hong Kong residents had been arrested in November 2001 for alleged involvement in the country's largest seizure of heroin.
A shipment of 672.9kg of heroin was found on several trucks transporting timber from Myanmar in Luoping county, Yunnan province, on November 8, 2001.
Twenty suspects were arrested, including 12 from the SAR. If convicted, they will almost certainly face the death penalty.
Yunnan police said trafficking charges had been laid against some of the suspects. A spokesman for the Yunnan Provincial Higher People's Court said it was gathering case files from investigators and a trial date had not been set.
The SAR Security Bureau said it was still in communication with mainland police to determine the Hong Kong suspects' identities and no personal details were available.
The joint committee - which includes the Hong Kong branch of Amnesty International, abode rights activist Father Franco Mella and four other civic groups - met bureau officials to press the demands, which they hope will be passed to the mainland.
They want SAR prisoners serving sentences on the mainland to be allowed to finish their terms in Hong Kong prisons and demand a halt to the execution of SAR residents.
"The number of known SAR residents executed is just the tip of the iceberg," Father Mella said. "Since Hong Kong does not have the death penalty, they should not have to face execution in the mainland."
The committee recorded from media reports that 23 SAR residents had either been executed or were facing execution in 2001.
Among them were Hong Kong drug lord Chong Cho-shing, 40, and four of his SAR associates, who were sentenced to death last month for producing on the mainland 31 tonnes of the drug "ice" between 1995 and 2000. Their appeals are pending.
In a statement, the SAR Security Bureau said: "Hong Kong residents must follow mainland laws when they are in the mainland.