Article 23: Keeping old copies of the Apple Daily at home in Hong Kong is 'sedition'
Hong Kong’s legislature works overtime during the weekend to further restrict freedoms in the former British colony. Security Secretary Chris Tang justifies denying detainees the right to legal counsel for 48 hours with the risk of collusion. Meanwhile, Beijing reports the arrest and trial of about 2.4 million people.
Hong Kong (AsiaNews) – Just owning a copy of Apple Daily, the pro-democracy newspaper founded by Jimmy Lai that shut down after its main administrators were arrested and its bank accounts frozen in 2021, could become a criminal offence under the latest version of Hong Kong’s proposed national security law.
This is one of the most surreal aspects that of the bill implementing Article 23 of the Basic Law tabled last Friday that the Hong Kong government wants quickly approved by its most loyal Legislative Council (LegCo).
As a sign of the haste, Hong Kong’s legislature exceptionally met on Saturday and Sunday for a total of 16 hours of debate. At this rate, the final vote will likely be held this week.
Since there is no real room for real debate, all lawmakers can do is look at individual articles; for example, LegCo member Peter Koon focused on the possession of publications considered "seditious".
“[Apple Daily] is certainly seditious, but what if some people intend to keep a record of such a bad newspaper and has two copies at home, would that be counted as possessing seditious publications?” Koon asked.
Security Secretary Christ Tang answered saying that it would depend if the person accused had a “reasonable defence.”
“[If someone said] I had [the newspaper] for a long time, I didn’t know it was still there, the aim was not to incite… then I believe that could be a reasonable defence,” Tang said, noting that the time of publication would not matter in the prosecution of possession of seditious publications.
Even more aberrant are the explanations given this morning for extending police detention to 16 days from the current 48 hours, as well as denying a suspect access to a lawyer in the first 48 hours.
“Based on Hong Kong's actual circumstances, we've probed national security cases before and we believe [an extra] 14 days is reasonable for conducting a preliminary investigation," Tang said.
As for the major restrictions on the right to defence, the security secretary said: “Maybe we know this person has many accomplices, who may be lawyers. But we don't know which law firm they're working for and whether they're barristers or solicitors,” he said.
“In this case how can we ensure there wouldn't be a risk that the lawyer might help the suspect to, for example, handle proceeds from a crime and tip someone off?" he added.
These are but two examples of how John Lee's government, with Beijing’s blessing, intends to use the law to restrict freedoms in Hong Kong and do so as soon as possible.
Once in force, the measures against dissent in the former British colony will be the same as those of the People's Republic of China.
Meanwhile, according to official data released during the Two Sessions, the plenary meetings of mainland China’s top political bodies currently underway in Beijing, some 726,000 people were arrested last year while 1.68 million were tried, for a total of 2.4 million.
In a country of 1.4 billion, such figures clearly give an idea of the degree of social control that the People's Republic of China wants to impose on Hong Kong as well.
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07/02/2019 17:28
21/06/2021 09:43
