HK twin wins right to stay

Lin Yueng-ming (centre) is celebrating with her family

A Chinese twin girl, who faced separation from her sister and parents when Hong Kong moved to repatriate thousands of illegal immigrants, has been told she can remain with her family.

I'm very happy - it's a little bit incredible

Lin Yeung-ming

Lin Yeung-ming's story has been widely reported in the media as a dramatic example of the right of abode ruling's impact on thousands of Chinese mainlanders seeking to stay in the territory.

More than 4,000 immigrants who have defied a deadline to return to China face forcible deportation and could be prosecuted on their return.

The Hong Kong authorities have warned that they will only be granted amnesty in the most exceptional of circumstances.

Forced to choose

"We are really, really very grateful and we are so happy now... that my daughter has been given a one-way permit," Lin Yeung-ming's father, Lin Jiaxiang, told Reuters news agency.

"I'm very happy. It's a little bit incredible!" Yeung-ming, who has been staying illegally with her family, told local television.

Her father came to work in Hong Kong in 1979 but when he finally was granted immigration papers for his family, they were told they could only bring one child.

Unable to choose, her parents got the twins to play "paper, scissors, stone", a children's game popular in the Far East.

"My parents couldn't decide which of us it should be," 19-year-old Yeung-ming told BBC News Online earlier this month.

"For the sake of fairness they made us play the game. The winner could come to Hong Kong. I was the loser. I had to stay in China.

"I was so sad I burst into tears. I ran away and hid."

Protests

Yeung-ming is now celebrating, but protests by mainlanders are continuing after an illegal migrant was taken to the territory's Victoria Prison.

Protests continue outside Victoria Prison where a mainlander is being held

Cheung Hoi-sang, 24, is being held after being picked up during a police stop-and-search operation last Friday.

"Release him, release him," chanted the protesters outside the jail.

In a 24-hour blitz which ended in the early hours of Saturday, Hong Kong police and immigration officers arrested 168 suspected visa overstayers.

But abode-seekers remain defiant in spite of the police swoop, vowing to go underground to resist deportation.