HONG KONG (AP) - Five years after Hong Kong's return to China, its capitalists are still capitalists and its freedoms are largely intact. But critics say a planned anti-subversion law is posing the worst threat yet to those liberties.
The legislation is supposed to protect national security, but pro-democracy politicians, human rights campaigners and others say Hong Kong's civil rights and credibility as a financial hub are at stake.
“In China, similar subversion laws are regularly used to convict and imprison journalists, labor activists, Internet entrepreneurs and academics,” Brad Adams, the Asia executive director of Human Rights Watch, wrote in an open letter to Tung Chee-hwa, Hong Kong's government leader.
The issue has exploded into Hong Kong's biggest political battle since the last months of British rule in 1997, when many were predicting a crackdown on free speech and politics. No such crackdown materialized, but what seems ominous to some is that while the Hong Kong government is saying it wants to consult the public about the law, Beijing's top representative here, Gao Siren, has said the protests will have no effect.
Opponents accuse Beijing of pressuring Hong Kong.
“It's a serious breach of one country, two systems,” said opposition lawmaker Cyd Ho, referring to the government arrangement established when Hong Kong rejoined China on July 1, 1997, with guarantees of its freedoms and autonomy.
Hong Kong's government insists constitutional protections of free speech, media and religion are inviolate, but many here fear the new law could be used to muzzle dissidents and bring the tiny territory more tightly under Beijing's thumb.
“Perhaps they will use it against a few people to silence the whole community,” said Law Yuk-kai, director of the Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor.
The law is to give police broader powers to investigate crimes against the state, some of them carrying up to life in prison. But the problem is, the public hasn't seen a draft text of the law, and until it's published, U.S. Consul General James Keith said last week, “it will be hard to either confirm or dismiss worst-case scenarios.”
Some predict officials will target [Falun Gong], outlawed in mainland China [slanderous term omitted] but still free to practice in Hong Kong.
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But the United States, Britain and Canada are among the nations raising questions, and many here doubt the ``trust me'' approach.
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Journalists fear charges of stealing state secrets could be applied to any publication of information that hasn't been officially released. Some executives are concerned they could get in trouble for doing business with Taiwanese companies whose bosses advocate formal independence from China - a concept that Beijing regards as secession.
Other business people worry about the free flow of financial information - crucial to Hong Kong as a market center.
Some analysts say Hong Kong's 6.8 million people are being dangerously split.
Demonstrations by both sides have drawn crowds in numbers rivaled only by the annual commemorations of the 1989 bloodshed at Tiananmen Square in Beijing.
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http://www.ptd.net/webnews/wed/ax/Ahong-kong-subversion.Rv6V_CDQ.html
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