Hong Kong will not welcome any visitors who are looking to “damage the solemnity of the Olympics,” the government said in a report, raising fresh concerns it was clamping down on free speech.
“As a cohost city of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Hong Kong has the obligation to ensure that the relevant Olympic activities will proceed in a safe, peaceful and smooth manner,” the department said in a report to legislators released on Tuesday.
“The government does not welcome it if any person seeks to damage the solemnity of the Olympics or disrupt the smooth proceeding of the relevant Olympic activities in Hong Kong,” the report said.
Hong Kong will host the equestrian events.
“Immigration control and public order must be strengthened especially when major events are taking place in the region,” the report said.
At least 13 people — including known members of activist groups — were prevented from entering Hong Kong ahead of the torch relay’s journey through the territory last Friday. However, US actress and activist Mia Farrow was allowed in despite her vehement criticism of China’s backing of the Sudan government, accused of prolonged rights abuses.
Legislator Cheung Man-kwong (張文光), a pro-democracy activist, said failure to explain the entry bans had damaged Hong Kong’s reputation.
“The government’s silence is a shield to hide the fact that such measures have damaged the ‘one country, two systems’ [arrangement],” he said, according to a report in the South China Morning Post yesterday.
ANTHROPOLOGISTS
Meanwhile, a major academic conference in Kunming in July has been postponed amid a slew of official measures to avoid possible disruptions ahead of the Olympics.
Conference organizers yesterday refused to give a precise reason for the rescheduling of the world congress of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, scheduled for mid-July.
They said they hoped it could be held in late November or early December instead.
”We have postponed the July conference, but I am not at liberty to tell you the reason why,” said Zhang Jijiao, one of the event’s organizers and a sociology professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing.
Zhang said 6,354 people had registered to attend the congress.
Union secretary-general Peter Nas said a postponement would be a major disruption and that he was trying to persuade organizers to keep the original dates.
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS