A senior official yesterday called for unity with villagers affected by the ban on backyard poultry, saying removal of fowls was a crucial part of the government's plan to protect public health against avian flu.

In an attempt to pre-empt a legal battle with villagers and defuse the tension among them, the official appealed to them to understand that it was in the common good of all to join hands to keep the health threat at bay.

The appeal came as Heung Yee Kuk - the umbrella organization of the territory's villages - raised its rhetoric that it was ready to wage a war in court unless officials agreed to compensate villagers for the heads of poultry they had seized. He made the remarks while visiting a Sun Tin villager whose 300 chickens were seized by Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) officials on Thursday. The villager had reportedly been rearing the chickens illegally.

Last week, the government declared none could raise poultry in the backyard without a license from Monday. Earlier, no license was required for less than 20 heads of poultry. The owners were asked to either hand over the poultry to AFCD or risk being raided by officials for their seizure. Also, the government ruled out any compensation for the villagers, saying the rural areas' infrastructure would be improved instead.

Kuk Chairman Lau Wong-fat said they would move court next week for a judicial review of the government's ban without compensating owners for their loss of backyard poultry.

It is against the Basic Law not to compensate villagers for the loss, the Kuk reiterated, because Article 105 says the government had the obligation to protect the right of a person to compensation for lawful deprivation of his property.

The official, speaking as a government spokesperson, however, sounded confident that the ban without compensation conformed to the Basic Law, though the administration didn't want the case to end up in court.

She said: "Hong Kong is a free society and everybody is free to seek redress in court. Should that be the case, it would be up to the court to decide."

She reminded that the government had been trying to protect public health. "Let us remember most of the human infection cases reported overseas and in the mainland were related to backyard poultry."

She promised that the government would continue to communicate with the Kuk to remove any misunderstanding, and hoped that the government's relationship with villagers would not suffer.

Officials had once considered compensating the owners, she said, but dropped the idea after being convinced that doing so would be contrary to the policy objective of removing all backyard poultry speedily. "Had we taken that option, there was a very good chance for the exercise to be bogged down in compensation negotiations," she said.

Referring to the Sun Tin case, another government spokesman said they were studying whether to prosecute the man who had kept 300 chickens.

In a related development, Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) officials shut down an illegal poultry-slaughterhouse in Yuen Long yesterday.

Acting on tips, FEHD officials raided the factory at Kai Pak Leng in Lau Fau Shan around 5:30 AM. About 1,000 live chickens were seized from the temporary structure in addition to 80 that had already been slaughtered.

A man was arrested and, if found guilty of operating an unlicensed food factory, faced a maximum fine of up to HK$50,000 and six months' jail.

(China Daily HK edition February 20, 2006)