Advertisement
Advertisement
Lawmaker Lee Cheuk-yan

Hong Kong pan-dem lawmaker to provoke Beijing's national security laws

Labour Party activist, a vocal Beijing critic, joins mainland trip to see whether he will be arrested

A pan-democratic lawmaker plans to visit the mainland to put to the test the justice secretary's assurance that Hongkongers taking part in protests on home ground should not fear prosecution across the border under new national security laws.

Labour Party chairman Lee Cheuk-yan said he would join an official trip mainland authorities were arranging for all Hong Kong lawmakers to study a national economic initiative known as "One Belt, One Road".

"I will test whether I will be arrested," said Lee, who, as secretary general of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, had been leading participants of its annual June 4 vigil in chanting slogans to stop one-party rule.

He was speaking in response to the national legislature's passage of an all-encompassing law on Wednesday that named Hong Kong for the first time as having a responsibility to protect national security. Beijing sources were later cited as saying people who called for independence or an end to one-party rule would probably face prosecution if they crossed the border, according to Hong Kong media.

Yesterday, Secretary for Justice Rimsky Yuen Kwok-keung tried to calm worries that the law might lead to local protesters being arrested on the mainland, but he stopped short of saying if such detentions could happen.

"I think there's no need to worry," he said. "Firstly, the national security law is a declaration of principles. We can say it is a blueprint for overall national security. It did not [mention] any new crime [to be prosecuted] under the new [law].

"Secondly, under general legal principles, unless a law clearly states it regulates behaviour outside the territory, it will regulate only behaviour within the country or [jurisdiction].

"In the current circumstance, people's actions in Hong Kong are generally regulated only by Hong Kong law."

Radical lawmaker "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung disagreed with Yuen, saying the law seemed to apply "all over the world".

Leung was referring to the wide range of state interests, including military actions overseas, that the sweeping legislation covered, although an official of the National People's Congress Standing Committee had said the law would not be implemented directly in Hong Kong and Macau.

Under Article 23 of the Basic Law, Hong Kong is required to "enact laws on its own to prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition [or] subversion".

Following the passage of the national legislation, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying said the government had no plans to implement Article 23.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Pan-dem to put national security laws to the test
Post