China using sedition law to tighten grip on HK

Beijing, May 21: China’s Parliament said Thursday it will discuss a proposal for a national security law in Hong Kong that could ban sedition, secession and treason.

The move is likely to provoke strong opposition internationally stoke unrest in the financial hub which last year saw months of pro-democracy protests.

Beijing has made clear it wants new security legislation passed at its annual session. For about seven months last year, the semi-autonomous city was rocked by massive and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests.

Beijing’s proposal, which will be introduced at the meeting of the National People’s Congress that opens Friday, would strengthen “enforcement mechanisms” in the financial hub, the Parliament’s spokesman Zhang Yesui said. Article 23 of Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law, says the city must enact national security laws to prohibit “treason, secession, sedition (and) subversion” against the Chinese government.

But the clause has never been implemented due to deeply held public fears it would curtail Hong Kong’s cherished rights, such as freedom of expression.

Those liberties are unseen on the mainland and are protected by an agreement made before Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997.

An attempt to enact Article 23 in 2003 was shelved after half-a-million people took to the streets in protest.

The controversial Bill has been put back on the table in recent years in response to the rise of the city’s pro-democracy movement.