USA Today: Activists fear Hong Kong will silence dissent

Tue Dec 24, 2002

Paul Wiseman USA TODAY

HONG KONG -- The people of Hong Kong could be facing the biggest challenge to their civil liberties since this former British colony was handed back to China in 1997.

The Hong Kong government plans to pass laws next year to crack down on treason, subversion, sedition, secession and the theft of state secrets.

Despite assurances from Hong Kong officials, human rights and pro-democracy activists say the proposals are both sweeping and vague and would empower police to arrest people for expressing their beliefs. The plan would let police break into homes and offices without warrants to pursue those suspected of threatening the Chinese government.

This month, tens of thousands demonstrated against the plan in the biggest public protest since the '97 hand-over. ''The government could have tried to legislate without whittling down freedoms, but they chose not to,'' pro-democracy legislator Martin Lee says.

The human rights crowd isn't alone in its worries. Librarians, clerics, journalists, bankers and foreign governments have voiced fears that the proposals could undermine the ''one country, two systems'' setup designed to insulate Hong Kong from China's repressive political system. That arrangement has worked reasonably well since 1997. Unlike their countrymen on the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong residents have been free to hold anti-government demonstrations and to say, read and write whatever they want.

But a political time bomb has been ticking since 1997. Under Article 23 of the Basic Law, the Hong Kong mini-constitution drafted in preparation for the return to Chinese rule, Hong Kong is required to pass laws prohibiting the theft of state secrets and treason, secession, sedition and subversion against the Chinese government. Critics said the new laws were unnecessary: Any genuine threat to overthrow the Chinese government from Hong Kong was already covered by the laws Hong Kong inherited from the British.

Critics were also on alert because of the way Article 23 entered the Basic Law in the first place: It was inserted at China's insistence after the massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing by Chinese troops June 3-4, 1989. After the bloody confrontation, hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong residents marched in protest. Chinese leaders feared Hong Kong would become a base for subversion after 1997 and sought the legal tools to crack down.

The Hong Kong government was obligated to pass the laws, but human rights activists hoped it would wait as long as possible and use the opportunity to update or kill obsolete laws, not expand government power.

They were disappointed in September when the Hong Kong government released what it called a ''consultation document'' describing in 62 pages the laws it intended to pass. Hong Kong Secretary of Security Regina Ip said further delay risked provoking China to impose more restrictive laws on Hong Kong: ''People up north could overreact,'' she said.

''This is the introduction of mainland standards of national security to Hong Kong,'' said Sharon Xu, a Hong Kong spokeswoman for the spiritual group Falun Gong, which is banned in mainland China.

The Hong Kong government insists the proposed laws pose no threat to individual freedom. Ip says Hong Kong residents would still be free to say or write anything they want. But critics aren't so sure:

The government hasn't revealed the actual legal language that will appear in the bill and doesn't plan to do so until it officially hands the bill to Hong Kong's legislature, which is dominated by unelected politicians, many of whom are beholden to Beijing. By then, critics worry, it will be too late.

The plan is vague and broad. For example, the charge of treason covers those who try to ''intimidate or overawe'' the Chinese government without saying what those words mean. Similarly, the proposal says freedom to demonstrate and assemble in public would be protected by ''adequate and effective safeguards'' but doesn't describe those safeguards. Even Hong Kong's librarians are worried they could be prosecuted for stocking subversive books.

The proposals give the government the power to shut down any organization linked to groups banned in mainland China on national security grounds. Falun Gong, illegal in the mainland but allowed to practice in Hong Kong, fears that it will be banned here.

The proposals could encourage more self-censorship by the Hong Kong media. Under the plan, relations between the Hong Kong government and the Chinese national government would be covered by state secrecy protection. So a newspaper that got an exclusive story on, say, a new government-funded highway linking Hong Kong and China conceivably could be charged with revealing state secrets.

The Hong Kong government insists the law would never be used to intimidate reporters or silence debate and dissent. But ''if a reporter cannot tell up front what is prohibited and what is not, he's either got to be very brave or he's got to be very cautious,'' says Michael Davis, law professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

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