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HK COP CHIEF TELLS RESIDENTS TO ABIDE BY LAW HE CAN'T EXPLAIN
- By The Financial District
- Apr 2, 2021
- 2 min read
For Hong Kong residents wondering what sort of behavior might breach the Beijing-imposed national security law, one of the city’s top police officers says it’s the wrong question to ask, Iain Marlow and Stephen Engle reported for Bloomberg News on April 1, 2021.
“Do not tempt the law -- it’s simple,” Oscar Kwok, the Hong Kong Police Force’s deputy commissioner for management, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “A healthy attitude is to say, ‘How can I be a responsible citizen and just make sure that I contribute to the overall harmony and peace and security of this place,’ rather than say ‘Hmm, let me see how far I can push this envelope, so that I can almost touch the red line, but you can’t touch me,’” Kwok said.
“This isn’t how we want to police Hong Kong.” Critics said Kwok didn’t say anything about the kind of activities banned under the Beijing-approved law, making it as vague as the very provisions of the law that makes activities outside of Hong Kong punishable under its global reach.
The security law, put into place after sometimes-violent pro-democracy protests that rocked the city in 2019, prohibits subversion, secession, terrorism and foreign collusion. But lawyers and Western governments have criticized the law’s vague provisions as a tool for Hong Kong authorities to jail activists and opposition lawmakers for normal political activities, as well as students for posting comments online.
In a wide-ranging interview, Kwok defended the Hong Kong Police Force, saying the arrests were necessary because the city faces pressing national security threats, including from the US.
The Biden administration has tightened sanctions on mainland and Hong Kong officials on allegations they undermined the former British colony’s autonomy — as promised ahead of the 1997 handover--- 23 years after it was approved by the United Kingdom and China and deposited in the United Nations as a binding treaty.
