BY DOUG LORIMER
HONG KONG — On November 25, a Kowloon City magistrate found three political activists — Leung Kwok-hung of the April 5 Action Group and Hong Kong Federation of Students members Christopher Fung and Chris Lo — guilty of organising an illegal rally in February. They were the first protest organisers to be convicted under Hong Kong's public order ordinance since the territory's handover by Britain to China in 1997.
The ordinance requires that protest organisers obtain written permission seven days before a rally involving more than 30 people can be held. The penalty for not doing so can be a jail sentence of up to five years. The three activists, however, received good behaviour bonds. All three intend to appeal their conviction.
Leung, Fung and Lo were charged with violating the ordinance by police in May, in what human rights activists have denounced as a case of politically motivated "selective prosecution". During the trial, prosecution lawyers admitted that between 1997 and February this year, there have been at least 340 unauthorised rallies in Hong Kong and none of the organisers have been prosecuted.
A small rally was held outside the court building after the verdict was announced. Legislative Council member Emily Lau of the Frontier group and Democrat legislator Albert Ho denounced the verdict.
Leung added, "Yesterday's public order ordinance will become tomorrow's Article 23", a reference to the Hong Kong government plan to introduce legislation to implement Article 23 of Hong Kong's Basic Law. Article 23 would prohibit any act of "treason, secession, sedition, subversion" against the central government in Beijing and "prohibit political organisations or bodies of the region from establishing ties with foreign political organisations or bodies".
While detailed legislation has not been made public, the government's consultation document indicates that it plans to copy the Beijing regime's "anti-subversion" laws which, among other things, make it a crime, punishable with a prison term of up to 45 years, to have "dealing[s] with a seditious publication", "unauthorised possession of a seditious publication" and to "incite" others to commit "subversion" or acts of public disorder.
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, December 4, 2002.
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