程翔

We acknowledge with thanks the reply from your Personal Secretary Mrs. Ting Yip Yin Mei dated 6 April 2006 . We are appreciative of the commitment expressed by you and the HKSAR Government to follow up on the Ching Cheong case.

We learnt that you will be meeting Vice-President Zeng Qing-hong during a conference in Bo Ao, Hainan between April 21 st and the 23rd and that you will be discussing with him progress and issues pertaining to the HKSAR. We extend to you our best wishes and sincerely hope everything goes well and smoothly. The meeting day between Vice-President Zeng and you falls exactly on the one-year day of Ching Cheong's detention in China .

We had written to Vice-President Zeng last year to try to request a meeting with him to discuss the Ching Cheong case when he visited Hong Kong (please see attached). The case has since been passed back and forth between the State Security and the Procuratorate Departments. Members of the Legislative Council, including senior members of all the three major political parties, HKSAR delegates to the NPC and the HKSAR deputies of the CPPCC had voiced their support on Ching Cheong's behalf. Subsequently, Mr. Xu Simin, recipient of the highest HKSAR Grand Bauhinia Award, had written to the President of the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the President of the Supreme People's Court remarking that “the reputation of our country's judiciary and rule of law will be compromised if [the Ching case] is still not resolved over a long period.”

The attention that various sectors have given to the Ching case is phenomenal and is an indication of the worries about whether HKSAR residents after the reintegration with the motherland can enjoy safety, freedom and legal protection in the mainland. It also signifies doubts as to whether the HKSAR Government can in fact assure the legal protection of HKSAR residents when they are in the mainland.

As Ching Cheong has been detained for nearly a year, we sincerely ask you to raise the issue with the Vice-President when you discuss with him the SAR's affairs, and reflect to him the community's concern over the matter so that he could have a better understanding of the various sectors' worries. This should help bring about an early resolution of the Ching case and an outcome that is reasonable, fair and lawful.

Having known Ching Cheong for many years, we regard him as a paragon of patriotism. If the Ching case can be resolved early through your efforts and his release and freedom is secured upon confirmation that his actions have not impaired national security, we feel that this will be a win-win resolution for Ching himself, his families and friends, Hong Kong society, the Central Government and the cross-Taiwan Strait relations. Above all, it will be your major contribution to the implementation of ‘One Country, Two Systems' since you became the Chief Executive.