Hong Kong, June 25: Amnesty International has urged the Hong Kong government to "pull back from the brink of a potential human rights disaster" and not enact next month a controversial anti-subversion law.
Amnesty's Hong Kong branch urged the government in a statement late yesterday to step back from "its headlong rush" towards the enactment of the legislation which it said would limit the fundamental rights and freedoms of Hong Kong citizens. It expressed fears that the laws would allow mainland China's principles of state security to override Hong Kong's independent legal system. "There is still a window of opportunity for the Hong Kong government to pull back from the brink of this potential human rights disaster and to listen to the hundreds of voices raised in opposition to the serious problems raised by the proposed legislation", it said. "There is no defeat in allowing for more debate and further refinement in the proposed legislation", Amnesty International said.

"For a government to rush through a hastily worded and poorly drafted bill is both irresponsible and dangerous", it said.

The agreement under which Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997 obliges the territory to pass the legislation banning treason, sedition, subversion and the theft of state secrets.

The law is due to be enacted next on July 9.

A government spokesman reacted to Amnesty's call by saying "there is no extension of mainland laws to Hong Kong".

Bureau Report