Findings of Hong Kong law analysis ‘alarming’
An analysis carried out by Amnesty International has found that more than 80% of people convicted under Hong Kong’s National Security Law (NSL) have been wrongly criminalised and should never have been charged in the first place.
The research was published yesterday (30 June), which marked the fifth anniversary of the law’s enactment.
Amnesty’s analysis of 255 individuals targeted under the NSL since 30 June 2020 also showed that bail was denied in almost 90% of cases where charges were brought, and that those denied bail were forced to spend an average of 11 months in detention before facing trial.
Three key concerns
“Five years after the enactment of the National Security Law, our alarming findings show that the fears we raised about this law in 2020 have been realised,” said the organisation’s China director Sarah Brooks.
“The Hong Kong government must stop using the pretext of ‘national security’ to punish legitimate expression,” she added.
Amnesty said that its research had highlighted three main concerns:
- The criminalisation of the legitimate exercise of the human right to freedom of expression,
- The low bail grant rates in these cases, and
- The de facto long-term incarceration of most accused.
International standards
The analysis found that, of the 78 concluded cases under the NSL, at least 66 involved legitimate expression that should not have been criminalised according to international standards, with no evidence of violent conduct or incitement.
When concluded cases under article 23 and pre-article 23 ‘sedition’ offences are also counted, at least 108 out of a total of 127 cases (85%) involved “similarly legitimate forms of expression” that were unjustly prosecuted, according to Amnesty.
The human-rights organisation argued that these cases fell “well short” of the high threshold required for criminalisation under international standards.
Amnesty said that it had sent its findings to the Hong Kong government, which had dismissed them as a “distortion of the reality”.
Separately, a spokesperson for the EU’s diplomatic service said that the past five years had seen “a continuous erosion of civil liberties in Hong Kong, and a severe restriction of the space for the political opposition and independent civil society”.
The EU urged the territory’s authorities to shift their emphasis towards reconciliation in Hong Kong society “and again strengthen what has made Hong Kong so unique and successful by fostering openness, diversity, and the respect for fundamental freedoms”.