Hong Kong's legislature has unanimously passed the new Article 23 security law. Our reporter Herel Hughes spoke with Michael Mo, a researcher at University of Leeds and former Hong Kong District Councilor, to find out what it means for freedoms in the Chinese city.
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00:00 So just to start, what is Article 23?
00:03 What does it add to Hong Kong's existing national security law?
00:07 Article 23 is written in the Hong Kong's mini constitution called the Basic Law, which says
00:16 that Hong Kong's special administrative region government has the responsibility to legislate
00:23 their own laws to protect Hong Kong's and China's national security.
00:29 That has been dragging for over two decades or so as a hot button issue among politicians
00:37 and Hong Kong.
00:38 It pretty much would put the seditions into the framework of the national security law
00:45 that is legislated in Hong Kong right now and would further imprison anyone who deemed
00:51 like doing any seditious actions that would endanger local national security and they
00:57 could be jailed for longer time than under the current provision.
01:02 And of course, it added treason and other kinds of laws we could jail you for life time.
01:08 What does the law mean for people in Hong Kong?
01:11 It pretty much lowered the bar or the threshold for the law enforcement and the court to jail
01:21 anyone who deemed so-called seditious or making anyone dissatisfied or making hard feelings
01:28 to government officials.
01:30 They could get arrested and jailed pretty much with these new provisions.
01:36 So it is a catch-all crime for speech and political actions for the provisions that
01:43 it does not require the court to prove the person who made the speech or the many reasonable
01:52 criticisms that has an intent to incite violence.
01:57 And what about outside Hong Kong?
01:58 People like yourself?
01:59 It has the extraterritorial application, which targets any HKID, the Hong Kong ID holders
02:10 overseas.
02:11 For those who are living outside of Hong Kong, as long as they could not get rid of their
02:16 Hong Kong ID card, the extraterritorial application matters to them.
02:22 For instance, if they make criticisms or even join June 4th massacre vigil in the UK, for
02:32 instance, and being spot-photographed and being identified, they might be in trouble
02:38 when they're going back home.
02:40 The law received unanimous support from all 89 lawmakers and it even got an unprecedented
02:45 vote from the legislative president.
02:48 What can we take away from that?
02:50 We all know that it is a patriot-only legislature and it has become nothing but a rubber stamp.
02:59 So the vote itself is a way for these politicians to show their allegiance to Beijing.
03:05 During the committee stage, we all identified that the law itself is way problematic and
03:13 it's all the provisions that is not in compliance with the human rights treaties.
03:19 Still, we don't see any electrical member raise this kind of concern.
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