Hong Kong will create a number of new national security violations, a senior official confirmed Tuesday, building the Beijing law which was implemented last year which had criminalized many differences of opinion and changing the city.
Chris Tang, a former police chief who was promoted to a security secretary this year, said officials had begun working on local laws that would define new crimes under security law.
“We hope to solve it in the next legislative term and we will consult with the public,” Tang told the Pro-Beijing TA Kung Pao newspaper in the front page report published on Tuesday.
In a separate interview with Sing Tao Daily, another pro-Beijing media outlet, Tang said officials were studying the ongoing national security trials to guide their new laws.
“We don’t pay too much attention to espionage activities in the past and now we learn whether we need to set it up,” Tang told Sing Tao Eastweek magazine.
China enacted a broad national security law on Hong Kong last year in response to large democratic protests and often hard.
Law targets any action that is considered subversion, separation, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces.
It has been very deployed to people who express certain political views and have closed the city that had previously blunt and freewheeling in Chinese authoritarian image.
The new security law will be directed by Article 23 of Hong Kong’s Mini-Constitution, Tang confirms.
Article 23 called for Hong Kong to continue his own national security law after the delivery of 1997 to China.
Efforts to do so in 2003 triggered great protests and fears that Hong Kong would lose his unique freedom.
Legislation suspended.
The inability of Hong Kong to pass his own security law was one of the reasons Beijing lost patience after Democracy 2019 protested and announced his own law last year.
Some violations of Article 23 have been covered by the law – such as self-separation and subversion.
But new crimes will include betrayal, incitement, state secret theft and steps to stop “foreign political organizations” operating in Hong Kong – or Hong Kongers contacted them.
Tang does not provide a period of time for new law but says it will be passed by the next legislature.
Hong Kong will get a new legislature in December under the new political system imposed by Beijing where less than a quarter of body seats will now be chosen directly and only those who are considered accompanied by the office.
The legislature usually sits for four years.
National security violations are treated differently from other crimes.
In Hong Kong, only the selected national security judges who can try trials, guarantees are usually rejected to those who are arrested and judges are not requirements, although violations do life in prison.
More than 60 people, most of the leading democratic supporters have been charged with security violations last year and more than 140 were arrested.
Many other people fled abroad while dozens of civil society and opposition groups were late in the face of attacks.
On Tuesday Wall-Fare, a group that helped prisoners and families imprisoned for taking part in protest, said it was dispersed.