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Concerns have been raised that last year's Occupy pro-democracy protests may be considered 'subversion' under strict new Chinese national security legislation. Photo: AFP

Hong Kong Occupy protests ‘not subversion’ under new China national security law: official

Last year’s 79-day Occupy demonstrations would not be regarded as subversion under mainland China’s new national security law, a former Hong Kong justice secretary said on Monday.

Lai Ying-kit

Last year’s 79-day Occupy demonstrations would not be regarded as subversion under mainland China’s new national security law, a former Hong Kong justice secretary said on Monday.

Elsie Leung Oi-sie, now vice-chairwoman of the Basic Law Committee for the National People’s Congress, said the new legislation provided a framework to define national security and it was wrong to think that it targeted activities by a “small group of people in Hong Kong”.

She told Commercial Radio the new law outlaws acts endangering national state security and under the related provisions these required “organising, planning and implementing” acts to threaten the nation’s unity.

She said the participants of Occupy protests – which demanded the NPC change its restrictive framework on Hong Kong’s universal suffrage – did not fall under this scope.

“I think the whole issue of political reform is a Hong Kong issue,” Leung said. “They pushed to change the NPC decision. They also did not ask people to organise armed forces to overthrow the NPC decision.

“They only aimed to change a legal decision. This is not an act to overthrow the NPC standing committee or the whole political system of the nation.”

Asked whether organisers of Hong Kong’s annual June 4 vigil to mark the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown could be punished under the new law because of chants calling for an end to Communist Party rule, Leung said merely shouting slogans would not be regarded as a violation of the legislation.

She said it would require a further look at whether the organisers – the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China – had conducted any other activities connected to the mainland to tell if the group might have breached the new law.

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