Hong Kong independence activists are abusing freedoms and have little public support

The headline of your July 30 report on the comments attributed to former lawmaker Dr Margaret Ng Ngoi-yee (“Hong Kong freedoms at risk if ban on pro-independence party proceeds, former lawmaker Margaret Ng warns”) would have more truthfully reflected the situation if it had been “party ban will deal a blow to ‘further abuse’ of freedom”.

Dr Ng questioned how hosting street booths and conducting media interviews would pose an imminent danger to national security. Well, how imminent has the danger to be before action is taken? In fact, Hong Kong National Party convenor Andy Chan Ho-tin reportedly said he would support the use of violence. Even if he didn’t, he was inciting Hong Kong to break away from China, through “whatever effective means”, and such inciting is a treasonous act.

Hong Kong’s pan-democrats have often accused the government of wrongly incriminating people, such as the late Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo, for the words they used. Of course, they only use words. How else does one incite? And words can be mightier than the sword.

These activists have been abusing the freedom of expression at the behest of – and colluding with – foreign powers, or NGOs funded by those foreign powers, aiming to overthrow the Communist Party.

Don’t ask for it by overdoing it. That’s why half a million turned out in 2003 and now just a few hundred.