In the absence of threat, leave Article 23 alone
It is difficult to know where to begin in rebutting Mike Rowse's naive article ('Why we must tackle Article 23 legislation', September 21).
Perhaps the first point to make is that there is no reason, constitutional or otherwise, to suppose such a need is more urgent than the introduction, (similarly provided for in the Basic Law) of a fully democratically elected government of the Hong Kong SAR.
It is bewildering that the connection between the two issues appears not to have occurred to Mr Rowse.
When Article 45 has 'ultimately' come to fruition, namely with 'universal suffrage', the Hong Kong SAR's first elected (in any meaningful sense of the term) government can no doubt be urged, if necessary, to retable Article 23 legislation.
For anyone, let alone a British expatriate, to call for such premature introduction of security laws at this stage is baffling.
As for Mr Rowse's comment on America's 'homeland security law', does he not understand that this (and similarly prompted revisions to Britain's anti-terror laws) came about in circumstances of a national threat from internal and external terrorist attacks of the gravest nature including, of course, 9/11?