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Joint Statement from Civil Society Groups on the Hong Kong Government’s Consultation for Article 23 Legislation [1]

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Date: 2024-02

We, the undersigned, representing civil society and human rights organizations across the world, condemn the Hong Kong government’s plans to introduce domestic security legislation under Article 23 of the Basic Law.

The Hong Kong government formally launched the legislative process with a four-week “public consultation” on 30 January 2024. The law is set to prohibit seven types of offenses, including treason, espionage, and theft of state secrets. Many of these proposed provisions are vague and criminalize people’s peaceful exercises of human rights, including the rights to freedom of association, assembly, expression and the press. The crime of “seditious intention,” for example, proposes to punish those who “induce…disaffection against” against the Chinese government and “to incite any other person to do an act that does not comply with the law of the HKSAR,” which would include any peaceful criticism against the government.

The proposed law includes a number of procedural changes that will dramatically undermine the Hong Kong people’s due process and fair trial rights. The consultation paper advocates for extending police detention without charge, preventing contact between detainees and lawyers of their choice, and for denying those convicted under national security offenses their eligibility to up to a third reduction in their sentences for good behavior. It also advocates, without specifics, for “eliminating certain procedures” to “speed up” national security trials.

The introduction of Article 23 will bring further devastating consequences for human rights beyond those brought by the National Security Law when it was imposed by Beijing in 2020. These human rights guarantees–long protected in Hong Kong– are enshrined in Hong Kong’s de facto constitution, the Basic Law.

They are also enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which is incorporated into Hong Kong’s legal framework via the Basic Law and expressed in the Bill of Rights Ordinance, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

The National Security Law has been widely criticized, including by the UN Human Rights Committee which urged the authorities to refrain from its use and recommended its repeal. The UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights and the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women made similar recommendations. At China’s Universal Periodic Review on 23 January 2024, 18 UN Member States raised concerns about human rights in Hong Kong, and many cited the National Security Law and echoed calls for its repeal. To comply with its international human rights obligations, Hong Kong should repeal the National Security Law.

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[1] Url: https://freedomhouse.org/article/joint-statement-civil-society-groups-hong-kong-governments-consultation-article-23

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