Twenty years ago, Fermi Wong embarked on his first protest against the government. At least half a million more protesters were not expected to join.
In July 2003, the people of Hong Kong took to the streets to fight the impending passage of Article 23, a security law they feared would nullify the civil liberties they enjoyed as residents of the former British colony that had returned to Chinese sovereignty six years. before.
The show of people power, at the time the largest ever staged in the city, not only overcame the legislation, but also sparked a push for democracy that would gather momentum for the next 15 years.
“It was empowering and created awareness,” Wong recalled. “For the first time we came together and spoke up and realized how powerful it could be.”
That was then.
now, Article 23 is being resurrected by Hong Kong officials even as the National Security Law (NSL) imposed by Beijing in June 2020 has all but extinguished criticism and decimated most civil rights and fundamental freedoms. Official data shows that someone has been arrested every four days for security offenses in the last three years and most have been denied bail.
Protesters burn a Chinese flag during protests in 2003 [File: screengrab via AP Photo]
There may be worse to come.
“The NSL was something that Beijing rammed down Hong Kong’s throat; the optics were bad. Any new law enacted by local authorities is likely to be tougher than the NSL, as Beijing can ignore it as Hong Kong’s own decision,” said Ching Cheong, a long-time commentator on Chinese politics. .
Until recently, Hong Kong, a predominantly Han Chinese metropolis, became a safe haven for many fleeing political persecution and other turmoil in mainland China, including Wong, his family and up to 3 million other Chinese
Others also made the move for a better livelihood and a fuller stomach, but Beijing saw the territory as a base for subversion.
In April 1989, the people of Hong Kong gave their lot to pro-democracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and kept the movement going with donations for many more weeks until Chinese tanks moved in and crushed the rising The crackdown coincided with the drafting of the Basic Law, the constitution of post-handover Hong Kong as a special administrative region of China.
In the final stages, Beijing-appointed drafters toughened Article 23 by adopting an anti-subversion clause and bans on foreign political entities. Under the framework of “one country, two systems”, Article 23 stipulated that the future Hong Kong government should “enact laws on its own” to meet these requirements.
In a belated attempt to safeguard the territory’s political liberties, Hong Kong’s colonial legislature in 1991 passed the Bill of Rights Ordinance incorporating the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, codifying the civil liberties enjoyed by residents of Hong Kong.
“Core values” were erased
In the years before the 1997 handover and until 2003, Hong Kong society relied heavily on Beijing’s promise to maintain the status quo for at least 50 years. That is why the government’s attitude to pass Article 23 surprised activist Jay Chan like a bolt from the blue. Chan had supported the Tiananmen protests as a university student and, like Wong, joined the 2003 march of millions.
Emboldened by their initial success and even though Article 23 remained, to quote Wong, “hanging, like the sword of Damocles,” the activists decided to keep fighting.
In 2014, thousands of pro-democracy protesters launched Occupy Central, camping out in parts of the city center for nearly three months in a last-ditch effort to pressure Beijing to allow universal suffrage as guaranteed by the Basic Law.
“At that time we had the hopes and dreams of this government,” Chan recalled. “And that if we go into effect we could make a change.”
Then in 2019, 1 million people flooded the streets again to oppose an extradition bill that would have allowed Hong Kong courts to extradite suspects to stand trial in mainland China, where the courts are controlled by the Communist Party.
Even after a million more protesters took to the streets, then-Chief Executive Carrie Lam would not withdraw the bill until months later. The protests, demanding responsibility and democracy, would go on and become violent; they only dissipated when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020.
In June 2020, Beijing had imposed the NSL, criminalizing activities seen as secession, subversion and collusion with foreign forces. Within months, a series of arrests targeting pro-democracy activists and the media had effectively suppressed all dissent.
Succeeding Lam, current chief executive John Lee, a former security and ex-police chief who has just completed his first term in office, feels strong enough to do what his predecessors could not do.
It has pledged to enact Article 23 as early as the end of this year.
In an interview with local tabloid The Standard last month, Lee said: “We need a proper and effective law to safeguard national security.” He added that there was still “gentle resistance”.
In addition, Hong Kong authorities have also resorted to the little-used colonial-era Sedition Act, which allows for a maximum sentence of two years.
Carole J Petersen, a legal academic at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in the United States, hopes that Article 23, once enacted as local law, could also increase the penalty for sedition. Petersen was on the faculty of law at the University of Hong Kong from 1989 to 2006 and has continued to do research there.
And while Hong Kong authorities are taking the lead in writing the legislation, there is little doubt about the central government’s influence.
“No one would think that the Hong Kong government is really exercising autonomy in law-making,” Petersen told Al Jazeera. “Beijing’s definition of national security is extremely broad.”
Police stand guard outside the West Kowloon District Court building in February during a hearing of 47 pro-democracy activists charged with subversion under the National Security Act [File: Tyrone Siu/Reuters]
Case in point: An amendment to China’s counter-espionage law took effect this week to cover online attacks, defection and other espionage activities.
Recalling the horror of his childhood in Mao’s final years and weighing the risk of facing prosecution for his activism, Wong left his life’s work behind and immigrated to the UK in 2021, the ‘year after China imposed NSL became the law of the land.
“Literally overnight, the core values of our society were erased,” Wong said. “So fast there wasn’t even time to mourn our loss.”
