Hong Kong’s leader yesterday announced that the territory would urgently create a new security law to crush pro-independence threats, nearly four years after authorities extinguished a huge democracy movement.
The law would expand on legislation imposed by China in June 2020 to silence dissent, adding crimes such as insurrection and external interference.
The new law, which the government said it would open up to public consultation, would bolster the authorities’ ability to crack down on perceived threats.
Photo: Bloomberg
“While the society as a whole looks calm and very safe, we still have to watch out for potential sabotage and undercurrents that try to create troubles, particularly when some of the ‘independent Hong Kong’ ideas are still being embedded in some people’s mind,” Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee (李家超) told a news conference.
“The threats to national security are real, we have experienced them and suffered from them badly ... we don’t want to go through that painful experience again,” he said, adding that “some foreign agents may still be active in Hong Kong.”
The Hong Kong government’s first attempt in 2003 to introduce its own national security law was shelved after about 500,000 people took to the streets in protest. The semi-autonomous territory has since seen other waves of dissent, including in 2019 when hundreds of thousands of people participated in sometimes violent protests calling for greater freedoms.
In response, Beijing in 2020 imposed a National Security Law to punish four crimes — secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces — with sentences of up to life in prison.
Officials yesterday said that the territory’s own law, defined under Article 23 of the Basic Law, would also punish a raft of new crimes — treason, insurrection, espionage, destructive activities endangering national security and external interference.
Lee said authorities would engage with local and foreign groups in a consultation process on the law until the end of next month.
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