Jun. 15, 2003. 01:00 AM
HONG KONG - Six years after China regained sovereignty over this former British colony, a bitter clash is taking place between the government and human-rights activists over Hong Kong's future as an outpost of freedom.
Under pressure from the mainland, Hong Kong's government intends to implement a controversial package of national security laws early next month to deal with treason, subversion, sedition and state secrets.
Backed by strong support from pro-Beijing loyalists in Hong Kong's largely unelected legislative council, the government seems certain of victory.
But a showdown is looming over the dispute, which remained at a low boil while people were distracted by the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome.
Now, with SARS in decline, this territory's political temperature is rising fast over the proposals.
For a territory that proudly calls itself the Special Autonomous Region of Hong Kong, the issue of autonomy from the mainland cuts to the heart of its international image and domestic status.
Critics warn the new laws will harm Hong Kong's reputation as a protector of human rights and scare away business investment.
But Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa insists he will not be deterred from passing the legislation, which he considers part of the unfinished business of the handover.
Article 23 of the Basic Law, or Hong Kong's mini-constitution, stipulates that Hong Kong must at some future point "enact laws on its own" to safeguard state security.
The provision was inserted by China after protests erupted in Hong Kong over the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
Suspicions toward Beijing persist: At a candlelit vigil here marking the 14th anniversary of the June 4 bloodbath, an estimated 50,000 people turned out to raise the alarm over Article 23.
The backlash threatens to rain on a July 1 parade marking the anniversary of the handover.
Human-rights and pro-democracy activists are predicting more than 100,000 people will take to the streets against the national security laws in what could be the biggest political march since the mid-1997 transition to Chinese rule.
"The government has ignored public opinion over Article 23 and has become the enemy of the people," says Richard Tsoi, an organizer for the Civil Human Rights Front, which is organizing the protest march with 40 member groups.
An opinion poll released this month by the City University of Hong Kong showed 58 per cent of respondents oppose the package.
Among the most controversial proposals are restrictions to be placed on organizations deemed to be linked with those banned on the mainland, such as the Falun Gong meditation movement [...]
Sensing that the government won't be deterred, opposition politicians are appealing for support from foreign governments, including Canada, to prevail upon Hong Kong's leadership.
Martin Lee, founder of the opposition Democratic party, has just returned from a lobbying swing in the United States.
On Friday, he met privately with Canada's consul-general in Hong Kong to press his case.
"This government is going to ignore all opposition, no matter how strong and how cogent our arguments," Lee said in an interview before the meeting.
But he added that "Tung thinks it's important for Hong Kong to remain in the good books of foreign governments and keep its international image."
Lee urged Canada to recall the 1984 Sino-British agreement to maintain Hong Kong's independent legal and political systems for 50 years after the hand-over.
"Had you (Canada) known then that our freedom would last only six years, how would your government have responded?" Lee asked.
Canadian Consul-General Tony Burger said in a later interview that Canada is assessing whether to make any public comments in the coming weeks.
In a statement last fall, the Canadian government warned pointedly that the proposed laws would have to conform with international rights treaties and protect freedom of expression.
What has caught many people by surprise is that an abstract debate over political freedoms here has turned into a real-life argument about life-and-death issues in the wake of the SARS scare.
People are asking whether the national security laws, if they'd been in place, might have deterred the local media from the aggressive reporting that helped bring the virus to public attention.
In southern China, where the virus originated, a Communist party cover-up and a media blackout allowed the virus to spread across the border to Hong Kong and, ultimately, to Toronto.
Now, Hong Kong's experience with SARS weighs heavily on its future. If another viral outbreak emerged on the eve of Beijing's 2008 Olympics, Lee argues, China might declare it a "state secret" and intimidate the media into silence with the new laws in place.
"It's possible," he says, for the media "to fall afoul of the law" in such a scenario.
That threat has alarmed the Hong Kong Journalists Association, which published a report this month warning that "draconian powers of search and seizure" will cast a chill on local media.
The group's president, Mak Yin-ting, cautions that the national security laws "are an inducement to self-censorship; they may also irrevocably change the way we practise journalism in Hong Kong."
The government insists the national security laws will be little different from those on the books of other Western countries that have Official Secrets acts and outlaw treason or sedition.
The difference, however, is that those countries enjoy the checks and balances of democratic government that are not present in Hong Kong or mainland China.
Unlike Canadians, the people of Hong Kong can't turf out their government at the next election if it tramples on civil liberties or muzzles the media.
Beijing, meanwhile, is clearly running out of patience. Chinese President Hu Jintao and his top adviser on Hong Kong affairs, Tang Jiaxuan, said this month that Article 23 is a litmus test of national sovereignty.
"How can we not do it?" Tang asked reporters on a trip to Mongolia with Hu. "Otherwise, what's the meaning of Hong Kong's return (to China)?"
Hong Kong's secretary for security, Regina Ip, also has argued that the package is intended only to prevent the violent overthrow of the government and will not be abused.
"The entire debate illustrates a very severe clash of identity and a political cleavage in Hong Kong," says political scientist Sonny Lo of the University of Hong Kong. "Beijing will retain the final say on how to tackle dissidents in Hong Kong, so the situation will be like a sword hanging over their heads."
If, as expected, the bill becomes law next month, it will be "another step toward the mainlandization of Hong Kong politics," he says.
But rather than buying stability for Beijing by giving stronger police powers to Hong Kong's government, Lo predicts that Article 23 will energize the opposition into demanding a more democratic system here.
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