(Clearwisdom.net) While Hong Kong is shrouded in the haze of SARS and the people of Hong Kong struggle to stop its spread, the Hong Kong government has put their effort on Article 23 of the Basic Law, the proposed legislation that threatens human rights and freedom. Most government officials and the members of the legislation council are not willing to temporarily put aside the deliberation of Article 23 legislation in order to fight SARS together with the Hong Kong citizens. Ignoring their responsibilities in the crisis of SARS and its danger to the society, the economy and government, they surprisingly held a public hearing last Saturday. A majority of the speakers from different groups gave speeches strongly against the Article 23 legislation and questioned the motive of the government, questioning the government whether it was intended to take advantage of the focus of public and media attention on SARS in order to pass the legislation hastily and with less resistance and fewer worried voices. Some speakers further stated if Article 23 legislation is passed it would eventually destroy the human rights in Hong Kong, its rule of law and the policy of "One Country, Two Systems," and that its future harm to people would be much worse than SARS.

• Hong Kong government is regarding the people as its enemy

Civil Human Rights Front (CHRF) formed by 43 nongovernmental organizations pointed out at the public hearing that, under the appeal and worries from nearly 200,000 citizens who signed their signatures and 60,000 citizens who demonstrated on the street against Article 23 legislation, however, the government pays no attention to the will of the people and still pushes to forcefully pass the legislation. CHRF questioned whether the government regarded the people as its enemy and strongly denounced the government's act.

• The legislation is more harmful than SARS

CHRF further stated that it is known that the spreading of SARS has brought much damage to Hong Kong. One significant lesson learned from the crisis is that if the freedom of information and media has no legal system to insure it, people's right to know the truth would be weakened and the consequence could be disastrous. Therefore, CHRF called for Hong Kong citizens to pay close attention to the development of Article 23 legislation, because if it passed it would be more harmful than SARS in the long run.

• It's not for the safety of the nation and the peace of the people

Falun Gong practitioners of Hong Kong pointed out the intention of the central government who was behind the Article 23 legislation and has manipulated the situation. The fundamental principle of the Article 23 legislation is wrong. Article 23 is being forced to be added into the Basic Law by the authority of the central government after the Tiananmen Massacre on June 4th, 1989 in Beijing. It is not intended to protect the safety of the nation and the peace of the people but to maintain the validity of the totalitarian central government.

They said the mechanism in the bill to be able to outlaw local organizations that might be connected to the outlawed organizations in the mainland in the name of state security have drawn the most criticism and is in fact beyond the domain of Article 23. The mechanism will give a so-called legal basis for the autocratic government of Mainland China to "legally" persecute any groups in Hong Kong that it doesn't like. The autocratic government will play it like a remote control to direct the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and to try to suppress any groups with different opinions.

Falun Gong practitioners believed that if the Hong Kong people didn't strongly prevent the local government from making such a vicious law as Article 23, the domineering style of the mainland autocratic government would replace the style of ruling by law in Hong Kong. Therefore, the passage of Article 23 legislation will become the beginning of the decline of human rights and ruling by law in Hong Kong.

Falun Gong practitioners also mentioned that the former Chinese President Jiang Zemin is being sued overseas for genocide and crimes against humanity. Article 23 of Hong Kong is the extension of the Jiang regime's crime of genocide and crimes against humanity. Falun Gong practitioners would never wish that the government of the Special Administrative Region become an accomplice to this heinous crime.

The youth group of Hong Kong Alliance and the Hong Kong branch of Amnesty International gave the following opinions. The Blue Bill seems to be for the safety of the region and the people, but it includes ambiguous contents that leave many gaps for the government of the Special Administrative Region to be able to manipulate it in maintaining its power and persecuting the human rights, such as forcing the media to self-examine and using the law and police as politic tools.

• The freedom of information is helpful to people's heath

Hong Kong Voice of Freedom believed the freedom of speech and the publicity of truth are helpful to maintain people's health. The current crisis of SARS is the combination of the natural and man-made disasters. Because the local officials of Guangdong Province prevented people from knowing the epidemic situation from the end of the last year till the beginning of this year, the local people didn't know how to prevent it, thus causing the disease to spread to the whole country and beyond to the whole world.

The Voice of Freedom also said the Hong Kong government and the political puppets of the Beijing government are forcing the passage of Article 23. It is not for the safety of the region but for the safety of these authorities (merely the local officers), so that they can avoid being supervised and criticized by the people.

May 4, 2003