Hong Kong mulls over strengthening year-old security law as critics slam repression of dissent

By The Straits Times | Created at 2025-03-21 12:13:32 | Updated at 2025-04-04 17:26:51 2 weeks ago

HONG KONG – One year after Hong Kong’s home-grown national security law was enacted, the government is now reviewing how to refine it to strengthen enforcement, even as critics label it as a tool to normalise repression in the city.

The Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, under Article 23 of the Basic Law, or the city’s mini-Constitution, took effect on March 23, 2024. It complements, but is wider in scope, than the national security law imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing in 2020 after mass protests.

Ahead of the first anniversary of the Hong Kong legislation, the government told The Straits Times that it would review its experience and “examine whether it is necessary to improve the laws and enforcement mechanisms... to be more effective in preventing, suppressing, and punishing activities endangering national security”.

Since the law was implemented, “we have seen the business environment of Hong Kong continue to improve”, it added. “The safeguarding of national security is a continuous endeavour with no end point.”

Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce chief executive Patrick Yeung told ST that the improvement in the city’s business environment was “reflected in the number of registrations of local and non-Hong Kong firms hitting all-time highs in 2024... despite the weak global economy and geopolitics headwinds”.

A business sentiment survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong in January also found an increase in confidence regarding the city’s rule of law. Around 70 per cent of 500 business executives polled said their operations had not been adversely affected by the security law.

Those who back Article 23 note that there is room for improvement.

In early March, Hong Kong’s top court quashed the convictions of three key members of a now-defunct pro-democracy group that organised the city’s annual vigils to commemorate China’s 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, citing a miscarriage of justice.

The Court of Final Appeal ruled that government prosecutors’ redaction of core evidence from the case involving the members of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China had “deprived the appellants of a fair trial”.

Following the ruling, Mr Sun Qingye, deputy head of Beijing’s Office for Safeguarding National Security in Hong Kong, said the national security law “should be revised” if it encountered any problems in its implementation.

Chinese Vice-Premier Ding Xuexiang, too, urged Hong Kong to act more firmly in safeguarding national security.

But critics of the national security law continue to argue against it.

On March 19, human rights non-governmental organisation (NGO) Amnesty International lambasted the Hong Kong government for using the law to “suppress critical voices with the ultimate aim of eradicating them”.

Its China director Sarah Brooks said: “Over the past year, Article 23 has been used to entrench a ‘new normal’ of systematic repression of dissent.”

She added: “Alongside (Beijing’s national security law), it has handed the authorities virtually unchecked power to arrest and jail anybody criticising the government. The result is a Hong Kong where people are forced to second-guess what they say and write, and even what they wear.”

The Article 23 ordinance punishes offences such as sabotage, sedition, and external interference, and can apply to offenders outside Hong Kong. It was decades in the making, after a 2003 bid to pass it into law was shelved due to mass protests.

In the year since the ordinance took effect, five people have been charged under Article 23 and three of them have been convicted as at March 1, according to the Security Bureau.

The first to be convicted was Chu Kai Pong, 27, in September 2024. He was given 14 months’ jail for sedition after he wore a T-shirt with a protest slogan that said: “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times.”

Others say the ordinance has impacted Hong Kong’s judicial and social environments in profound ways.

Dr Eric Lai, a research fellow at the Centre for Asian Law at Georgetown University, told ST that after Article 23 was passed, “the courts appeared more eager to fully adhere to the government’s narratives and judgments on matters deemed to involve national security”.

Over the past year, the legislation has also created an “intensified chilling environment” across Hong Kong society that included “systematic harassment of journalists and pro-democracy parties being prevented from raising funds”, as residents shunned activities that risked contravening the law, Dr Lai said.

The most commonly used charge of sedition – inciting others to rebel against the authority of the government or state – has allowed the authorities “to exert greater social control, particularly over dissenting opinions and speeches”, he added.

Professor Simon Young, a practising barrister and law professor at the University of Hong Kong, said that while he does not see any immediate need to amend the legislation, he hopes for greater transparency on how it is used.

“For example, an annual report by the government or the Security for Justice on how the law has been operating would be useful to keep the public informed, especially when it comes to the use of the chief executive’s certificate, which cannot be substantively challenged,” he told ST.

When a court has to decide if an act involves national security, it is required to obtain a certificate from the chief executive of Hong Kong, who makes the final decision.

When asked about Amnesty’s statement, the Hong Kong government told ST that it “strongly condemns” the NGO’s “baseless allegations”.

A Security Bureau spokesman said: “Criticising the government, engaging in debates about or raising objections to government policies or decisions, however strong, vigorous or critical they may be, do not constitute an offence as long as they are based on facts.”

As at March 1, 320 people have been arrested in connection with suspected acts that endanger national security since Beijing first imposed the national security law on Hong Kong in June 2020. Among them, 91 people have been charged, with 76 of them convicted. Four companies have also been charged.

The landmark trial of Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai – the most prominent person netted under the law – has been ongoing since December 2023. It was initially supposed to last about 80 days, but a verdict is now expected only in October.

Lai – who has pleaded not guilty to two charges of colluding with foreign forces and a third of conspiring to publish seditious materials – has been behind bars since December 2020 and could be jailed for life if convicted.

Several of the city’s once-powerful opposition camp of pro-democracy political parties – which used to hold over a fifth of the seats in the legislature – have shut. The largest and most successful of them, the Democratic Party, said in February that it was moving to disband.

With the national security legislation now in place in Hong Kong, mass protests against Article 23 are no longer likely in the city.

But diehard activists, both local and foreign, are not giving up. They are organising a demonstration in Taipei on March 23 to raise awareness of their concerns for Hong Kong and express their support for those arrested under the ordinance.

Taiwan-based Hong Kong activist Fu Tong has widely publicised on social media the activities planned to mark the first anniversary of Article 23.

“I know there’ll be a price to pay for speaking out for Hong Kong,” Mr Fu said. “I’ve been mentally prepared for it since day one of my resistance; I will not be backing down.”