Hong Kong Article 23: Basic rights threatened as law enacted, critics charge
Hong Kong Article 23: Basic rights threatened as law enacted, critics charge
“We are basically seeing the Hong Kong government trying to slam shut the really last vestiges of room for criticizing it,” said Kevin Yam, one of 13 overseas pro-democracy activists accused of national security offenses by Hong Kong authorities.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/13468205
“We are basically seeing the Hong Kong government trying to slam shut the really last vestiges of room for criticizing it,” said Kevin Yam, one of 13 overseas pro-democracy activists accused of national security offenses by Hong Kong authorities.
When Britain returned Hong Kong to Chinese rule in 1997, Beijing assured the former colonial power that civil liberties in the city would be preserved.
On Saturday, Hong Kong enacted a measure that critics charge will further stifle free expression in a city that until recently was known for its freewheeling style, aggressive media and politically active populace.
The bill, called the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance but also referred to as the Article 23 law, took effect following unanimous approval earlier this week by Hong Kong’s opposition-free legislature, where it was deliberated over and passed in a record 11 days.
Article 23 is designed to supplement an earlier national security law Beijing imposed on Hong Kong in 2020, one that critics say supercharged the erosion of civil liberties here.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
On Saturday, Hong Kong enacted a measure that critics charge will further stifle free expression in a city that until recently was known for its freewheeling style, aggressive media and politically active populace.
The bill, called the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance but also referred to as the Article 23 law, took effect following unanimous approval earlier this week by Hong Kong’s opposition-free legislature, where it was deliberated over and passed in a record 11 days.
But that comparison is misleading, said Eric Yan-ho Lai, a research fellow at the Georgetown Center for Asian Law, as those countries have stronger democratic protections “to check and scrutinize executive government abusing powers on the ground of safeguarding national security.”
Stephen Roach, a senior research scholar at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center and the former chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, said “the tone has darkened” in Hong Kong since the protests in 2019.
Hong Kong’s defenders argue that the city has always bounced back from any challenge it has faced, including pro-Communist riots in 1967, the Asian financial crisis of 1997, and the public health crises of SARS and Covid-19.
The large-scale protests that put a stop to Article 23 the last time the government proposed it would hardly be possible in today’s Hong Kong, where the vast majority of pro-democracy figures are in jail, living in self-exile or have resigned from politics.
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