Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) yesterday urged an immediate end to independence debates in the Chinese territory, warning that the issue was harming Hong Kong’s relationship with Beijing’s Chinese Communist Party leaders.
Insisting that the government did not want to intervene on university campuses, Lam said the campaign was “organized and systematic” rather than simply an issue of freedom of speech.
“This has already deviated from the so-called, ‘Why aren’t we able to talk about this?’ point of view. It is clearly attacking ‘one country, two systems’ ... and destroying the relationship between Beijing and Hong Kong,” Lam said.
“It is not in the interests of Hong Kong’s development and must stop,” she added.
Lam said the calls “violated” the Basic Law, the constitutional document securing Hong Kong’s broad freedoms of speech and assembly after Britain returned its former colony to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 under the “one country, two systems” banner.
While the Basic Law enshrines far broader civil and commercial freedoms than exist in mainland China, some legal experts say a sustained independence campaign could break laws against sedition.
Chinese leaders, including President Xi Jinping (習近平), have warned that independence discussions are a red line that cannot be crossed, saying that Hong Kong is an inalienable part of China.
Some students have placed banners on “democracy walls” on campuses in recent days, sparking anger and counter campaigns from Hong Kong-based mainland students.
Some mainland Chinese students and pro-China patriotic groups have sought to rip down some posters, sparking heated exchanges with Hong Kong students and free speech advocates.
Pro-independence activists should be “killed” and treated without mercy, Junius Ho (何君堯), a pro-Beijing Hong Kong lawmaker, said during a rally on Sunday, sparking outrage and calls for police to act.
The widening controversy sparked criticism from Chinese state media, as well as a rare joint statement from the heads of Hong Kong universities, saying that the universities did not support Hong Kong independence.
Lam said she believed university management would be able to handle the issue without government action.
Asked about Lam’s warnings, Chris Patten, Britain’s last governor of Hong Kong, urged greater efforts to engage Hong Kong’s restive young people.
“It’s unwise to think that you can simply shut it down by, and I’m sure Carrie Lam wouldn’t suggest this, by locking students up,” Patten said.
“These aren’t people to be frightened of. They are the future, and you’ve got to persuade them why they’re wrong,” he added.
While the students should “back off” counterproductive independence debates, they should continue to push for democracy and the rule of law to secure their freedoms, he said.
“This is an extremely moderate community,” Patten later told a meeting at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club. “If you give Hong Kong a bit more democracy, you’ve got to recognize that it’s a moderate place and people will behave responsibly.”
However, Patten was critical of the Hong Kong government’s decision to seek a resentencing of democracy activist Joshua Wong (黃之鋒) and others, calling it a “political decision” that should have been better thought out, given the criticism it provoked.
He also mentioned a Reuters report that Hong Kong Secretary for Justice Rimsky Yuen (袁國強) had overruled department colleagues in pursuing prison sentences for the democracy activists.
“He’s a grown-up, he must know ... that actions have consequences,” Patten added. “Not to understand what signal that would send to the rest of the world strikes me as being, to be frank, a little naive.”
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS