New York Times: Plan to Crack Down on Dissent Stirs Debate in Hong Kong

HONG KONG, Nov. 2 — A fierce debate has erupted here over a government proposal to lengthen jail terms and increase fines for people who make "seditious" statements, even over the Internet, and to allow some police searches and seizures without a warrant.

The increasingly heated discussion has caught the attention of world leaders, including President Bush. After meeting with President Jiang Zemin of China a week ago, Mr. Bush said he had offered his views on the importance of China's "preserving the rights of Hong Kong citizens."

China's deputy prime minister, Qian Qichen, fanned the dispute when he said in a recent television interview that opponents of the new rules must have something to hide. The opponents must have "devils in their hearts," he warned, a phrase that has angered and dismayed democracy advocates here.

Regina Ip, Hong Kong's powerful secretary for security and a top aide to Tung Chee-hwa, the chief executive, increased the controversy when she spoke to students at a local university last Monday. Mrs. Ip questioned the value of democracy in protecting civil liberties and contended that democracy in Germany in the 1930's led to the rise of Hitler and to the Holocaust.

She said at a public debate on Wednesday that the remark was a personal opinion, not a government position, but went on to cast doubt again on the usefulness of democratic processes. "I don't think democracy is the panacea for all problems," she said. "If you look at the countries around the world, particularly in Asia, there are many democratically elected governments which fail even to protect human life, let alone human rights."

Hong Kong was a British colony until 1997, when it was returned to China. The territory enjoys some autonomy under its Basic Law, which provides for a separate legal system and considerable autonomy in running its own affairs.

Tightened up by Beijing after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, Article 23 of the Basic Law calls for the Hong Kong government to put in place laws against sedition and treason.

The government put out a "consultation paper" last month that outlines in some detail the legislation it plans to introduce in February, with the goal of winning final passage by the legislature next summer.

Pro-Beijing parties dominate the legislature, where only 40 percent of the members are directly elected. (The others are chosen by special interest groups or a committee.) The legislature virtually always passes government proposals, though sometimes with small changes.

Hong Kong's government contends that its current proposal conforms to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as the United States has urged.

Hong Kong currently has a sedition law dating from colonial times that prohibits people from bringing the government "into hatred or contempt," but it has not been enforced for years. Bob Allcock, the solicitor general of Hong Kong, said the consultation paper called for narrowing the definition somewhat, to "incitement to violence or public disorder which seriously endangers the stability" of China or Hong Kong.

But the consultation paper does call for harsher penalties against people who engage in sedition, as newly defined. Instead of two years in prison and a fine of up to 5,000 Hong Kong dollars ($641), violators will face up to seven years in prison and fines up to 500,000 Hong Kong dollars ($64,100).

Critics contend that expressing support or even sympathy for Taiwan, which China views as a renegade province, could be interpreted as an incitement to violence. Government officials dismiss these fears as exaggerated.

Seditious publications are already subject to confiscation, though the longstanding rule has not been used recently. But the consultation paper calls for the same longer jail terms and higher fines as for sedition for the responsible individuals and covers information published on the Internet. The police would be allowed to search and seize evidence without a warrant in cases they deemed to involve national security.

All of these provisions have alarmed news organizations here.

In a speech on Thursday to four local chambers of commerce, Mrs. Ip did promise that the actual legislation, unlike the consultation paper, will have two limits on the police's ability to conduct searches and seizures in national security cases without seeking a court's approval. The government has decided, she said, that the police should still be required to obtain warrants before they may conduct searches or seizures of financial information or of "journalistic materials."

The consultation paper also says that foreigners living in Hong Kong would be subject to prosecution on sedition charges and that activities may be seditious even if they occur partly in other countries, as long as the hub of the activity is here.

Audrey Eu, a politically independent member of the legislature, said at the debate on Wednesday with Mr. Allcock and Mrs. Ip that the antisedition laws amounted to importing mainland Chinese laws, a contention Mrs. Ip denied. The debate was held at the Foreign Correspondents Club here.

Speaking in Cantonese, Mrs. Ip had said on Monday: "Hitler was returned by universal suffrage and he killed seven million Jews. Did he respect human rights?"

The statement has drawn growing criticism for being both callous and historically incomplete. Hitler lost Germany's presidential election in 1932. While his Nazi Party subsequently became the largest in Parliament, it did not command the support of the majority of Germans. Partly by fomenting political violence, Hitler ended up becoming the chancellor of a coalition cabinet on Jan. 30, 1933, and was subsequently voted dictatorial powers by Germany's Reichstag.

"For some reason people love to imagine Hitler was voted into power, but it was far more complicated than that," said Mitchell B. Hart, the Padnos visiting professor of Jewish history at the University of Michigan. He added that most experts put the number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust at five million to six million, not seven million.