BBC Monitoring: Falun Gong says denied access to Hong Kong government venues

BBC Monitoring: Falun Gong says denied access to Hong Kong government venues

02/27/2002

Source: RTHK Radio 3 audio web site, Hong Kong

Falun Gong followers have accused the administration of barring them from government venues. They have submitted 36 applications to the Leisure and Cultural Services Department in the past six months but none
has been accepted. They lodged a formal complaint with legislative councillors today.

The group's spokesman [Hoi?] told Altis Wong that the reasons given for turning down the applications were unconvincing.

[Hoi?] The reasons given are (? all standard). The first reason is all the venues are given to the special groups doing performing arts, local community
activities and government departments. And secondly, all the venues are given to the other groups. All, you know, what we are saying is we don't want to speculate on what is the reason behind of not giving us a venue.
We want the legislative councillors to examine whether they have done everything according to the system, and secondly to have a review on the system, to improve its transparency, consistency so that everybody will get a fair chance.

[Wong] Do you think your group has been targeted?

[Hoi] I do think they have a specific arrangement against our group, I do think. But because I do believe all departments have got a very detailed rule in distributing the venues, so I just want them to examine whether they have done according to rules.

[End of recording].

A spokesperson for the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, (? June Tong) says the group has not been targeted and she told Altis Wong that the department would cooperate with requests from legislators.

[Tong] Our department is waiting for instructions on the request from the Legislative Secretariat and we would provide whatever information that is required.

[Wong] Have the department targeted them?

[Tong] No, no. I think this is not true. They have not been discriminated against. We treat all the applications fairly and openly according to our
established procedures. [End of recording]