Hunt for the poetry of refuge

LONDON - Lawyers for a Chinese woman facing deportation from Hong Kong say she could be saved if a copy of one of her poems can be found, writes Raymond Whitaker.

Liu Yijun, 29, applied for political asylum after escaping from China last year. She said she faced persecution because her poems, written under the name Chen Yu, had been circulated among pro-democracy demonstrators in Peking's Tiananmen Square in 1989. After the democracy movement was crushed, she went into hiding with a friend, Lin Lin, who later escaped with her and who is also due to be deported later this week.

Mr Liu carried copies of her poems, but says they were stolen during her escape. Her lawyers are appealing to Chinese exiles or academic institutions which collected pro-democracy material to help.