Dr. Kevin Lau from Hong Kong spoke at an interactive dialogue with the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention during the 63rd session of the UN Human Rights Council, calling for greater attention to arbitrary detention and Japan's handling of the history of the "comfort women".
"I'm Dr. Kevin Lau from Hong Kong and a father of five children, among them a daughter. Arbitrary detention is a scourge. A doctor does not examine one patient and ignore the ward. So we speak truth and love — and we hold ourselves to the same light," Lau said.
Lau emphasized that 80 years after the Tokyo Trials, Japan has still never provided statistical data on the "comfort women" subjected to arbitrary detention, nor investigated, prosecuted or convicted the perpetrators of those crimes.
"Worse, the Japanese government still denies, alters and downplays this history—and obstructs efforts to raise memorial statues for the victims," he said.
As the father of a daughter, Lau said he thought of the fathers whose daughters never came home and whose questions were never answered.
"Every one of those girls was somebody's daughter. What was done to them disgusts me; the denial disgusts me more," he said.
"Denial is the second detention," Lau said, before turning to Hong Kong's legal system.
He said Hong Kong is a society underpinned by the rule of law, with its courts deciding cases only on the law and evidence proved beyond reasonable doubt, free from interference. He added that residents' rights are protected under the Basic Law and both covenants.
"An opinion is not a verdict," Lau said, referring to the case of Jimmy Lai. He said Lai was tried over 156 sitting days in open court, involving 2,200 exhibits, 80,000 pages and 855 published pages of reasons.
Lau also said the National Security Law clearly stipulates that human rights shall be respected, protected and safeguarded while national security is maintained in the HKSAR.
"So let this council work without selectivity to prevent, to investigate, to remember. Let us be peacemakers in this work of memory and let the healing of the nations begin together," Lau said.
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