The Hong Kong authorities strongly condemned British “slander and smears” and interference in native affairs after London on Monday sought to reassure Hongkongers within the UK they had been “secure” from the town’s nationwide safety legal guidelines and that it will not permit any international makes an attempt to hurt people within the nation.
The federal government mentioned in a late-night assertion on Monday that the UK was repeating its outdated methods, ignoring information, making fallacies, placing politics above the rule of regulation, and complicated proper and incorrect on all facets of Hong Kong.
Britain blatantly interfered with Hong Kong affairs in a futile try and undermine the town’s prosperity and stability, it mentioned.
The strongly worded response adopted remarks by UK International Secretary David Cameron in London’s newest six-monthly report on Hong Kong that underneath the nationwide safety regulation imposed on the town in 2020, nearly all political opposition had been “eradicated”.
“Dissent has been criminalised. Civil society has been marginalised,” he mentioned within the 54th report back to the British parliament, masking the interval between July and December final 12 months.
“The Hong Kong authorities’ efforts to stamp out ‘comfortable resistance’ has focused even essentially the most minor deviations from unwavering assist for the governments of Hong Kong and China.”
Since July 1997, the international secretary has been required to report back to parliament at six-monthly intervals on the implementation of the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, the settlement that paved the best way for Hong Kong’s return to Chinese language sovereignty.
It was the primary report by Cameron, a former prime minister, on the town since his time period as international secretary started final November.
Cameron mentioned Hong Kong authorities had tried to implement the nationwide safety regulation extraterritorially by issuing arrest warrants and HK$1 million bounties for every of 13 opposition figures residing abroad, principally in Britain.
“We won’t tolerate any try by any international energy to intimidate, harass or hurt people in the UK,” he mentioned.
“The nationwide safety regulation has no authority within the UK. We shouldn’t have an lively extradition settlement with Hong Kong or China. I need to guarantee our valued Hong Kong group in the UK: you might be secure right here.”
He accused Beijing of breaching the joint declaration by imposing the nationwide safety regulation.
Underneath the declaration, each China and Britain agreed that the town would keep a excessive diploma of autonomy besides in international and defence affairs for not less than 50 years following the handover in 1997.
“This regulation, rushed by way of the legislative course of, is probably going incompatible with worldwide human rights regulation,” he mentioned.
“It falls in need of the worldwide requirements Hong Kong has promised to uphold and may have a unfavorable influence on Hong Kong individuals’s potential to train their rights and freedoms.”
Hong Kong applied its home nationwide safety regulation on March 23, concentrating on 5 main actions: treason; revolt, incitement to mutiny and disaffection, and acts with seditious intent; sabotage; exterior interference endangering nationwide safety; and theft of state secrets and techniques and espionage.
The federal government additionally mentioned on Monday that the Beijing-imposed nationwide safety laws had extraterritorial impact, and police had been liable for pursuing these suspected of violating the regulation abroad.
