Rotary Club of Hong Kong South Meeting Report

cting President IPP Bob welcomed Rotarians and Guests to our regular meeting.

Fellowship Chairman PP Paul introduced :

Mr Kenneth Au, Club Guest

Mr G Choi, Guest of P.E. Bernie

The following announcements were made : -

2nd Directors' Meeting will be held on 1st August 2001 (Wednesday) 6:30 p.m. at President Kishore's office.
Joint Meeting with RC of Victoria on August 27, 2001 (Monday) at Island Shangri-La Hotel (Our Lunch Meeting on August 30, 2001 will be cancelled)
District Governor Johnson Chu's Official Visit on September 13, 2001 (Our Regular Lunch Meeting)

Speaker : Mr Ravi Gidumal

IPP Bob introduced the speaker, Mr Ravi Gidumal. Mr Gidumal was a director of the Indian Resources Group which, pre 1997, had lobbied successfully for the British Government to give passports to Hong Kong's ethnic minorities. Since 1998 he has been a member of HARD, or Hong Kong Against Racial Discrimination.

Mr Gidumal spoke about racial discrimination in Hong Kong, citing a number of examples of discrimination against ethnic minorities (EMs), from parents who prevented their children from playing with EM children, to discrimination against EMs in the workplace, in the property market, on public transport, in medical services and elsewhere. He referred to the well publicised case of the lawyer who died last year in a Government hospital, who before she died, had stated that she was suffering racially discriminatory neglect.

Apart from the undesirable social consequences of discrimination, Mr Gidumal also pointed out the negative effects it had on tourism and business, particularly the negative effect on Hong Kong's development as an information technology centre, due to the reluctance of software engineers to relocate to Hong Kong because of the well known problems faced here by ethnic minorities.

He noted that although Hong Kong was a signatory to the United Nations Convention Against All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Government had yet to pass laws against racial discrimination. This failure, coupled with well publicised cases of discrimination, had resulted in the Hong Kong Government being severely criticised at the UN and in other forums. Mr Gidumal was shortly to attend another UN conference on racial discrimination at which the Hong Kong Government would be represented and at which it was expected that the Government would again be censured for its indefensible, head in the sand attitude to this very serious problem - a very serious problem if you happen to be a member of an ethnic minority.

P.E. Bernie thanked Mr Gidumal for his eloquent and informative address.

Everyone was then invited to drink the customary toast to the Rotary International and with that the meeting ended.