Hong Kong’s new law

It is ironic that you slam Hong Kong for passing a new national-security law in fulfilment of its constitutional, legal and moral obligation to protect its country and city, when the British Parliament enacted a sweeping and far more stringent National Security Act last July to counter “hostile state threats” (“So much for autonomy”, March 23rd).

There is no overlap between our new law and the nationalsecurity law enacted by Beijing. Offences like treason, sedition, the theft of state secrets and espionage are not covered in Beijing’s law. They have actually been on our statute books for decades in localised versions of British laws. The British government under its National Security Act rejected a “public-interest defence” for people (especially in the media) vulnerable to prosecution for disclosing vaguely defined “protected information”. Yet our new law provides a defence for persons who are compelled to disclose “state secrets” without authority where there is a serious threat to public order, public safety or public health, among other circumstances.

Britain’s National Security Act introduced the new offences of “sabotage” and “foreign interference”. Similar new offences in our nationalsecurity law are closely modelled on the United Kingdom’s.

You also completely disregard that we have a robust rule of law in Hong Kong, and our courts have ruled against the government in many cases. No court observers have been able to find fault with our transparent court proceedings or the learned judgments handed down by our courts.

REGINA IP

Member of the Legislative Council

Hong Kong