New security law imposed on Hong Kong puts freedom at risk –UN experts

A group of UN experts (legal scholars) have declared that the security legislation imposed on Hong Kong by China puts freedoms at risk and thus urged Beijing to reconsider the new law.

The group of experts has thus written to China to warn that the national security legislation imposed on Hong Kong at the end of June is a serious risk to the territory’s political and civic freedoms.

The law “poses a serious risk” to fundamental freedoms and due process protections, the 14-page letter said.

Dated September 1, the letter was signed by seven special rapporteurs led by Fionnuala Ni Aolain, the special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

The letter published on the website of the UN’s Human Rights Office on Friday reads thus; “In particular, we express concern at the broad scope of the crimes defined as secession and subversion; the express curtailment of freedoms of expression, peaceful assembly, and association; the implications of the scope and substance of the security law as a whole on the rule of law; and the interference with the ability of civil society organisations to perform their lawful function.

“We underscore that security and human rights are intertwined and not separate,” it added.

This came after China vowed to take “all necessary countermeasures” if the United States imposed legislation penalising banks doing business with Chinese officials who implemented the new national security law on Hong Kong.