South China Morning Post: Europe urges HK to protect freedoms

03/26/2003

The Hong Kong government must do more to protect human rights and move towards full democracy, according to a European parliament report on the
special administrative region (SAR).

[...]

The report is now set to be approved as a resolution by a full plenary session of the parliament, either next month or May.

"This is a balanced report that shows overall that `one country two systems' remains reasonably well intact," said legislator John Cushnahan, who was responsible for drawing up the paper.

He stressed that the details of the Article 23 legislation were "something about which we wanted to express particular concern". The report said the anti-subversion legislation could undermine existing human rights and civil liberties in Hong Kong and could be used against anyone the central or Hong Kong government objected to, including political dissidents and religious or spiritual groups such as Falun Gong, which is already outlawed on the mainland.

The committee reiterated its call for the establishment of a statutory human rights commission as an "effective balance" between Article 23 legislation and respect for rights. It also welcomed the SAR's commitment to consider legislation against racial discrimination.

The EU legislators expressed specific concern at Chief Executive Tung Chee Hwa's labelling in June 2001 of Falun Gong as [slanderous term omitted] and they put on record their "strong opposition to any move on the part of Hong Kong authorities to ban Falun Gong".

The committee also noted criticisms of the accountability system of government introduced by Mr Tung, that "concentrates power in the hands of the chief executive and has the potential to politicise the civil service".

The promised review of constitution developments after 2007 should lay the ground for the election of the chief executive in 2007 and Legco in 2008 on the basis of universal suffrage, the report said.