“I think sedition is the only offence in Hong Kong against hate crimes,” Tong told a radio programme on Friday, noting that national security laws called for under the city’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law, had not been enacted.
The South China Morning post reports on this disturbing development……….Government adviser Ronny Tong defends Hong Kong police’s use of sedition laws, after arrest of opposition politician Cheng Lai-king
- Executive councillor insists age-old statute offers the only legislation against hate crimes in the city
- But top legal scholar says it now flies in the face of freedoms guaranteed under the Basic Law, and would be challenged in court
Hong Kong’s sedition laws, though nearly 80 years old, are still necessary to provide the only offence against hate crimes in the city, a top government adviser insisted on Friday, after an opposition politician was arrested for an online post against a police officer.
Ronny Tong Ka-wah made the defence of the statute as one legal scholar noted that the rarely used law had always been vaguely worded and politically charged, and predicted appeals which could go all the way to the top court.
, under the legislation predating the second world war. A day earlier, the 60-year-old Democratic Party veteran shared – and later deleted – a Facebook post that detailed the name and identification number of a police officer said to have shot a journalist in the eye with a non-lethal projectile during an anti-government protest in September. The post called for “an eye for an eye”.
The arrest has already drawn criticism from the pro-democracy camp, which said it would have a chilling effect on free speech.
But Ronny Tong Ka-wah, a member of the Executive Council and former chairman of the Bar Association, said on Friday the use of anti-sedition legislation was, in general, reasonable.
“I think sedition is the only offence in Hong Kong against hate crimes,” Tong told a radio programme on Friday, noting that national security laws called for under the city’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law, had not been enacted.
After Cheng’s arrest, police did not spell out the alleged seditious intent involved, but mentioned potential incitement of “hatred or violence”.
The crime of sedition passed into law in 1938. It prohibits seditious acts or even the use of “any seditious words”. It has been used rarely since the 1967 riots.
Read more at. https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3077230/government-adviser-ronny-tong-defends-hong-kong-polices-use
