(d) I also put a post, linking the inmate's letter, on the Facebook page of Uganda's UBC TV:
Many items in this article are website links, because this campaign has been an internet campaign. This article is therefore best viewed by screen, rather than in print form
January 5, 2017
The anti-drug campaign of Fr John Wotherspoon - by Fr John
1. How the campaign began - the Tanzanian action:
(a) In early 2013 I was saddened at the number of drug mules from Tanzania and Colombia arriving at Lai Chi Kok Reception Centre which at that stage I visited around four times a week. At one period 2013- 2014 there were around 30 Tanzanian inmates at LCK. One or more was arriving almost every week. I asked the Tanzanian and Colombian inmates to try to stop the flow by getting their relatives, friends, media, churches and politicians to tell people not to bring drugs to Hong Kong. But nothing happened. The flow of mules continued.
(b) Therefore with the unofficial approval of welfare authorities at LCK I encouraged one Tanzanian inmate to write a letter warning his countrymen not to bring drugs to HK. That letter, in English and Swahili, I put on my website www.v2catholic.com and linked on East Africa's number one website www.jamiiforums.com. Within a few days the letter on my website had more than 5,000 views and also had many views on a number of blogs in East Africa.
(c) The letter contained the names of ten Tanzanian drug lords, including one serving politician. The letter is Here. The letter lit a fire in Tanzania: a fire of interest and concern and action about the problem of drug trafficking.
(d) The letter was posted on my website on July 21, 2103 and had an immediate effect on the flow of drug mules to HK. In the following 8 months, only (2?) Tanzanians were arrested at HK airport. (My original figure 1, not 2 ...maybe 2nd one is a Nigerian using a Tanzanian passport?)
(e) Many other letters, from the original writer and other Tanzanian inmates, were also posted on my website from 2013 to the present time (2016).
(f) To combat a brief surge of Tanzanians in 2014, I went to Tanzania in January 2015, engaging inmates' families and local media in support for the campaign.
(g) Some of the media reports from January 2015, together with many dozens of letters posted 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 and many media articles are Here:
(h) According to my calculation, only 4 Tanzanian drug mules were arrested at HK airport in 2016. For 2015 the figure was also low. The Tanzanian inmates themselves support my conclusion that this reduction since 2013-2014 has in no small part been because of my campaign.
2. The Colombian action:
(a) This year 2016 has seen only one drug mule from Colombia arrested at HK airport. This is very different from previous years as I'm sure Customs figures will show. (In fact, Customs figure for 2016 is zero, not one!)
(b) Over the past three years, many dozens of letters from the Colombian inmates have been posted on my website. In response to my encouragement, the inmates' families have actively supported my campaign by setting up Facebook accounts and sending material to local media in Colombia. Both the Colombian inmates and I feel that the campaign activity of the inmates and their families has been a major reason for the sharp decline in the number of Colombian drug mules arrested at HK airport.
(c) The letters of the Colombian and other South American inmates' are Here
(d) One of the Facebook pages is Here. This Facebook site has links to the inmates' letters. Other South American sites supporting the campaign are Here
3. More than one website:
(a) From 2013 to August 2016, all campaign letters and other items were on my main website www.v2catholic.com. But in order to make the campaign more effective, I bought more website's so that there is now a website for each of the main countries/areas from which the drug mules have been coming. These websites are linked at the top of www.v2catholic.com
4. Samples of how the campaign works:
(a) Kenya
action: In July of 2016,
at Tai Laim Women's Centre I learned
of a plan for 10 more women from
(b) Filipino action: On December 1, HK's No. 1 foreign newspaper, "Hong Kong News" (for Filipinos) had a large report ‘More women being recruited as drug mules’ with the byline: "Prison chaplain Fr John Wotherspoon warns Pinays against drug mule recruiters in HK and PH". The article has links to letters written by Filipinas in prison in HK. This article, in hard print and on the newspaper's website and on social media was be accessed by many tens of thousands of Filipinas in HK - surely saving some (many?) of them from the trap of drug trafficking they might otherwise have fallen into. The campaign has been effective.
(c) Uganda action: On December 12, 2016 I received in the post a letter from a Ugandan inmate in Stanley Prison. I scanned the letter and put it on my website www.ugandablog.org at this location (Nov 28). Because the letter mentioned the Abuja Restaurant in Kabalagala, Kampala, I therefore added links concerning that restaurant and that location. One link - Kabalagala: No Longer a Narcotics Zone - was from the website of the Uganda Police Force, so I sent them a message (click to enlarge):
(d) I also put a post, linking the inmate's letter, on the Facebook
page of Uganda's UBC TV:
Such publicity will help stop other Ugandans from bringing drugs to Hong Kong.
5. How many inmates have joined the campaign?
(a) Since the campaign began in July 2013, I estimate that around 50 remand inmates have joined the campaign. Far from all inmates join the campaign. Many are not interested. Maybe some still have links to the Drug Lords who sent them ...and/or afraid of those Drug Lords. I have never stopped any inmate from joining the campaign.
(b) When the campaign first began, there was no thought or mention of a discount for letter writers. The topic never came up in the beginning. In the beginning the only aim was to stop people coming to HK. Even now, for not a few of the letter writers, this is still the main aim. Mitigation discount is a secondary aim. Indeed, a number of letter writers have continued writing even after they have been sentenced ...showing how deep is their intention of stopping people coming.
(c) It is highly significant, and most unjust, that the very first letter writer, the Tanzanian man, who put his family's safety in danger by writing the first letter (his family was subsequently threatened ...see Here) has never received a discount for his effort.
6. How many inmates have received discounts for joining the campaign?
(a) My estimate is that more than a dozen inmates have received a discount for the part they and they families have played in the campaign - discounts ranging from two to thirteen months. The inmate who received the 13 months was given this by Judge Woo Kwok Hing when he heard how the inmate's brother, a policeman in Nairobi, Kenya, had organised meetings to promote the campaign and had taken part in a press conference for the campaign (with photographs of these activities produced by me in court). Judge Woo's summary statement is Here (HCCC 145/2016)
(b) On the other hand another dozen or so inmates have received nothing for their efforts when they were sentenced.
7. HK media articles about the campaign - Here
8. The need for the campaign to be on-going:
(a) The brief surge in Tanzanian drug mules arriving in HK in 2014, despite the campaign, taught me that this campaign has to be on-going. Any let-up will result in "the fire" starting up again. This is why I am encouraging inmates to continue writing letters, even after they are sentenced. And this is why I am now at present on another trip to Africa - to South Africa, Lesotho, Zambia (and Dubai) - December 27, 2016 to January 31, 2017. Here in Johannesburg I am currently helping a team from South Africa's famous investigative program "Special Assignment" to prepare a documentary on the danger of drug trafficking to HK.
(b) Concerning the need for inmates to keep on writing, I see this as a win-win-win situation: far fewer drug mules and their drugs coming to HK, far fewer families in the sending countries being destroyed, far fewer costs and problems for CSD because of a big reduction in the number of inmates.
(c) As already said, most if not all campaign inmates are willing to keep on writing, even after sentence. But surely there is a matter of justice here: their efforts should be acknowledged by some sort of reduction of sentence. This again is a win-win affair: a reduction policy will encourage them to keep writing, and their writing will stop mules coming.
(d) What sort of reduction policy? Well, I see this as a happy problem, precisely because it's a win-win affair. For pre-sentence inmates, I feel that the best person to evaluate an inmate's contribution and resulting reduction is the sentencing judge who has all the facts of the case at hand. For post-sentence inmates, I hope their could be an evaluation committee - appointed by the Chief Executive - to assess the annual campaign contribution of an inmate and his/her family. So, for example, if an inmate and/or his/her family made a contribution to the campaign each month of the year, that might merit a reduction of two to four weeks, depending on the significance of the contribution. e.g. Only a letter each month - two weeks; a letter and a Facebook post (by family/friend) each month - three weeks; a letter, Facebook post and other media activity or community meetings each month - four weeks.
(e) HK is trying to be a place of innovation. Such a policy of sentence reduction as acknowledgement of campaign activity could set a trend that might be followed by other places. "The HK inmate publicity campaign sentence reduction policy"!
9. My special hopes for the campaign:
(a) I hope the HK government will take over much of the campaign. Twelve website's are too much for me. The project has now become too much for me. The Information Bureau has the facilities to do the publicity I've been doing and more (e.g. advertisements in the drug-mule sending countries)
(b) Up to now, has the HK government even once placed an advertisement in any of the drug-mule countries sending countries to warn people about drug trafficking to HK? The HK government could put not just advertisements, but also media releases etc).
10. Cases of threatening which indicate that the campaign has been effective:
(a) Already mentioned in 5 (c), above, is the fact that the family of the original letter writer was threatened.
(b) I received a threatening phone call from a man calling himself "George" a week or so after the very first letter was published, around the end of August 2013, asking why I was publishing lies about his "uncle" in Tanzania (the politician who was named in the first letter)
(c) "George" again phoned me about Nov/Dec 2014, before my trip to Tanzania, saying I would not welcome in Tanzania. This caused me to worry that I might not be allowed into Tanzania on Dec 31, 2014, but in fact there was no problem
(d) I received a threatening phone call from local HK Nigerian Drug Lord "Nonso"/"Frank" on August 30, 2016 (I have a recording of the call!)
(e) I have received critical emails from local HK Drug Lady Esther. These emails I have put at the bottom of Esther, so to speak.
(f) I have received an email from a social worker in Tanzania, Grace Soso, who visited most Tanzanian inmates in HK in October 2015. Grace has been following the campaign, and keeping contact with inmates' families in Tanzania. Her email of December 26 has the words "I went thru your website be very care full with Esther and Sharon they may kill you.I am so scarred"
(g) I have also received emails from a Kenyan woman now back in Kenya after detention in HK ... warning me to be careful of upsetting people like Sharon and Esther.
11. Conclusion:
(a) At a meeting with representatives of the Correctional Services Department and the Security Bureau on November 28, 2016, I made the statement that since the campaign began in July 2013, it is not unreasonable to claim that the campaign has stopped at least 100 drug mules from coming to HK with at least 50kg of cocaine. No one at the meeting questioned this claim. If anything, the figures of 100 and 50 are an underestimation. The campaign has been effective.
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