Hong Kong face-off

Legal challenge to mask ban as protesters hit streets

HONG KONG: A group of prodemocracy Hong Kong legislators filed a legal challenge against the government’s use of a colonial-era emergency law to criminalise the wearing of masks at rallies to try to quell the ongoing anti-government demonstrations.

The mask ban — which one politician described as a “weapon of mass destruction” — that went into effect at midnight Friday triggered an overnight rash of widespread violence and destruction in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory.

That included d the setting of fires and attacks on an off-duty police officer who fired a live shot in self-defence that wounded a 14year-old. Two ac- tivists failed to obtain ain a court injunction on Friday against the ban on face coverings that the government says have made it tough for police to identify radical protesters.

In a second bid on Saturday, politician Dennis Kwok said a group of 24 legislators filed a legal appeal to block the anti-mask a law on wider constitutional grounds. He said the city’s leader, Chief Executive Carrie Lam (pictured), acted in bad faith by b bypassing the Legislative Council, Cou Hong Kong’s parliament, in invoking the emergency law.

“This is a Henry VIII situation. This is basically ‘ I say what is law ... and I say when that ceases to be law’. That’s not how our constitution works,” Kwok said late on Saturday. “We say that she doesn’t have such powers, that she cannot avoid” the Legislative Council. The court was set to hear the case yesterday.

Lam has said she will seek the Council’s backing for the law when its session resumes on October 16 and hasn’t ruled out further measures if the violence continues.

Politician Claudia Mo called the Emergency Ordinance a “weapon of mass destruction” that could pave the way for more draconian regulations. Kwok said the group also asked the court to rule that the emergency law, enacted by British colonial rulers in 1922 to quell a seamen’s strike and last used in 1967 to crush riots, was incompatible with rights and freedoms under Hong Kong’s constitution put in place after it returned to Chinese rule in 1997. In a televised address broadcast as protesters again marched in masks on Saturday, Lam described Hong Kong as “semiparalysed” and reiterated the mask ban was needed to stop the violence.

Police said no arrests had been made so far on the antimask ban.