The new “national security” law for Hong Kong that was recently proposed by China could lead to the establishment of the apparatus of a police state, the Hong Kong Bar Association said last week.
The statement from the association obtained by Newsmax came days after the National People’s Congress, China’s legislative body, approved the introduction of a new security measure whose details are expected to be unveiled and enacted by September.
The legislation will be inserted in Hong Kong’s Basic Law without any vote or input from the Legislative Council of Hong Kong.
The key words in the draft measure enacted by the NPC, the Bar Association notes, are that “when needed, relevant national security organs of the Central People’s Government will set up agencies in the HKSAR [Hong Kong Special Administrative Region — the official name of Hong Kong] to fulfill relevant duties to safeguard national security in accordance with the [Hong Kong National Security Law].”
In other words, the ministries of State Security and of Public Security and other secret police organizations that operate in mainland China can now — for the first time — operate in Hong Kong.
“It is entirely unclear how the proposed agencies set up in the HKSAR will operate under the laws of the HKSAR,” concluded the Hong Kong Bar Association. “Whether they will be bound by the laws of the HKSAR, whether they have power of enforcement, and whether such powers as exercised will be limited by the laws currently in force in the HKSAR” is unknown.
The Hong Kong attorneys also questioned how this arrangement “would comply with Article 22(1) of the Basic Law, which provides that ‘No department of the Central People’s Government … may interfere in the affairs which the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region administers on its own in accordance with this Law.’”
Both the United States and the European Union denounced the proposed national security legislation, and the U.S. is expected to impose sanctions on top Chinese government officials under the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019.
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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