New Hong Kong national security law to add five crimes
Hong Kong’s leader announced on Tuesday the city would urgently create a new security law to crush proindependence threats, nearly four years after authorities extinguished a huge democracy movement.
The law will expand on legislation imposed by China in June 2020 to silence dissent, adding in crimes such as insurrection and external interference.
Critics of the existing security law have said it has affected Hong Kong’s status as an international hub, and culled freedoms the city had long enjoyed.
The new law, which the Hong Kong government said it will open up to public consultation, will bolster the authorities’ ability to crack down on perceived threats.
“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,” Lee told a press 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”.
Since Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997, the city has been under a “one country, two systems” regime, in which the legal and court structures are separate from the mainland.
Under its mini-constitution, known as the Basic Law, Hong Kong is required to enact a law combating seven security-related crimes, including treason and espionage.
The Hong Kong government’s first attempt in 2003 to introduce the its own national security law was shelved after half a million 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.