Epoch Times: The UK Government is Concerned with Hong Kong's Enactment of Article 23

Saturday, 22^nd March 2003

Bill Rammell, UK Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, expressed the UK government’s concern over the enactment of Hong Kong’s Article 23 of the Basic Law at a United Nations press conference in Geneva on 20^th March 2003. He stressed that the guarantee of HK’s prosperity is based on freedom of speech and the media.

The HK government’s insistence on the enactment of Article 23 of the Basic Law has caused extreme anxiety for HK’s future among the International Community. During the 59^th United Nations Commission on Human Rights, about one thousand people concerned with the freedom of HK held a large-scale protest near the Palais des Nations building in Geneva. According to New Tang Dynasty TV, Rammell explained at the press conference that the UK government had expressed several times its anxiety to the Chinese government about the enactment of Hong Kong’s Article 23 of the Basic Law.

Rammell pointed out that freedom of the legal system and the press has allowed Hong Kong to obtain its success in the past. Freedom of speech and the press cannot be sacrificed at any cost. The UK government is presently researching the details of Article 23. It will soon release a detailed statement.

Rammell also indicated that the UK would continue to pay attention to the human rights problems in Mainland China.

[..]

Chinese version available at http://yuanming.net/articles/200303/18548.html