Hong Kong:
Beijing has broken its legal obligations by undermining Hong Kong’s higher degree of autonomy and employed a national safety law to “drastically curtail freedoms” in the international monetary hub, according to a report by Britain on its former colony.
In a foreword in the six-month-to-month report covering July-December 2020, British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab stated a sweeping national safety law Beijing imposed on the city in June last year was getting used to stifle political opposition.
There had been “clear breaches” of the 1984 Joint Declaration, signed by then Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that assured wide-ranging freedoms for Hong Kong, Raab stated.
The report criticised Beijing’s overhaul of Hong Kong’s electoral method, prosecution choices made by the Department of Justice and the contentious safety law.
“We have, therefore, now declared China to be in a state of ongoing non-compliance with the Joint Declaration,” Raab stated, adding that the national safety law was not getting used to target a tiny group of criminals, as stated by Beijing.
“Rather it is being used to drastically curtail the space for the expression of alternative political views and deter freedom of expression and legitimate political debate,” he stated in the statement released on Thursday.
The Hong Kong government hit back at what it described as “inaccurate remarks” that could not be “further from the truth and are clearly double standards”.
“Any objective person will see that since the implementation of the Hong Kong national security law, stability, which is vital to business activities, has been restored to society and national security has been safeguarded,” a Hong Kong government spokesperson stated.
Beijing imposed a national safety law on Hong Kong in June that punishes what authorities broadly define as secession, sedition and collusion with foreign forces with up to life in jail, following a year of occasionally violent demonstrations.
Western governments and international human rights groups have expressed concern the law will crush freedoms in Hong Kong.
Britain, which ruled Hong Kong for more than 150 years till it handed it back to China in 1997, has stated the safety law was a breach of the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration that paved the way for the handover.
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