Hong Kong Businessmen Cheated in China

ZHANG:
These Hong Kong businessmen say they've been cheated out of their money after investing in mainland China, and now they have nowhere to go to seek justice. In August last year several Hong Kong businessmen formed an alliance, hoping that with a unified voice they will be heard by the Hong Kong justice system.

STORY:
The alliance, Hong Kong Business Compliant Alliance, has filed several joint complaints against mainland authorities who they say cheated them out of their money. They also went on a 30-hour hunger strike Thursday, March 12, to protest the fact that the Hong Kong government is not responding to their complaints or protecting their interests.

Here is the alliance’s secretary, Xue Baoren, announcing that the members are about to go on hunger strike. They are protesting the Hong Kong's court system's refusal to accept their complaint against Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang and other government officials.

In 1998 Xue invested in a food processing factory in Shenzhen in the mainland. He says millions of yuan he invested there were taken by local officials.

[Xue Baoren, Hong Kong Business Complaint Alliance]:
“Local officials’ colluding together, power and bribes. After Hong Kong businessman are slaughtered as one body, who will be there to find us? Who will speak for us?”

Alliance members say that in the process of being cheated out of their money in mainland China, Hong Kong’s government did nothing to stop it and now will not give them the opportunity to have their voice heard in a court of law.

[Huang Yijin, Hong Kong Business Complaint Alliance]:
"Since the reunification, human rights have not progressed, it has regressed. The judiciary system has not progressed, it is has regressed. Hong Kong’s judiciary system is dead, that is why Judge Feng refused to accept our judicial review."