Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa (
Pro-Beijing and pro-business lawmakers said Tung should try again with a national security measure, even though it prompted a protest by 500,000 people who called it a threat to civil liberties.
Tung was forced to withdraw the bill after that massive march on July 1 last year, which threw his government into its biggest crisis since Britain returned Hong Kong to China six years earlier.
Tung met with reporters yesterday and said that before Hong Kong can push again for the anti-subversion legislation, which has been demanded by Beijing, "the society must have basic consensus on this issue."
Tung also said Hong Kong constitutional affairs officials have other priorities, including making arrangements for the election of his successor in 2007 and the next Legislative Council in 2008.
Beijing angered many in Hong Kong by ruling out direct elections for the territory's next leader and for all lawmakers in 2008. Tung was chosen by an 800-member pro-Beijing committee, although ordinary voters were allowed to directly pick 30 of the territory's 60 lawmakers in elections on Sunday. The rest were chosen by special interest groups, such as bankers, lawyers and doctors.
Pro-democracy figures who fought hard against last year's anti-subversion bill claimed just 25 seats on Sunday, a gain of three.
The pro-Beijing and pro-government forces that will retain control of the legislature figured the time is right to try again on the bill, which would outlaw sedition, treason and other crimes against the state.
Critics have called it a threat to Hong Kong's freedoms of press, assembly and speech and voiced fears it could introduce mainland-style repression to the territory.
James Tien (
The pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB), also wants Tung to proceed with the legislation, which is required under Article 23 of Hong Kong's mini-constitution, the Basic Law, although no timetable is specified.
"This is something that has to be done sooner or later," said lawmaker Tam Yiu-chung (
The government and the pro-Beijing camp have insisted the anti-subversion measure was not intended to clamp down on local freedoms, which were constitutionally guaranteed for at least 50 years after Britain returned Hong Kong to China in July 1997.
Tam said the measure would simply "prevent people from engaging in subversion."
SUPPORT: Elon Musk’s backing for the far-right AfD is also an implicit rebuke of center-right Christian Democratic Union leader Friedrich Merz, who is leading polls German Chancellor Olaf Scholz took a swipe at Elon Musk over his political judgement, escalating a spat between the German government and the world’s richest person. Scholz, speaking to reporters in Berlin on Friday, was asked about a post Musk made on his X platform earlier the same day asserting that only the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party “can save Germany.” “We have freedom of speech, and that also applies to multi-billionaires,” Scholz said alongside Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal. “But freedom of speech also means that you can say things that are not right and do not contain
Pulled from the mud as an infant after the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and reunited with his parents following an emotional court battle, the boy once known as “Baby 81” is now a 20-year-old dreaming of higher education. Jayarasa Abilash’s story symbolized that of the families torn apart by one of the worst natural calamities in modern history, but it also offered hope. More than 35,000 people in Sri Lanka were killed, with others missing. The two-month-old was washed away by the tsunami in eastern Sri Lanka and found some distance from home by rescuers. At the hospital, he was
Two US Navy pilots were shot down yesterday over the Red Sea in an apparent “friendly fire” incident, the US military said, marking the most serious incident to threaten troops in over a year of US targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Both pilots were recovered alive after ejecting from their stricken aircraft, with one sustaining minor injuries. However, the shootdown underlines just how dangerous the Red Sea corridor has become over the ongoing attacks on shipping by the Iranian-backed Houthis despite US and European military coalitions patrolling the area. The US military had conducted airstrikes targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels at the
MILITANTS TARGETED: The US said its forces had killed an IS leader in Deir Ezzor, as it increased its activities in the region following al-Assad’s overthrow Washington is scrapping a long-standing reward for the arrest of Syria’s new leader, a senior US diplomat said on Friday following “positive messages” from a first meeting that included a promise to fight terrorism. Barbara Leaf, Washington’s top diplomat for the Middle East, made the comments after her meeting with Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus — the first formal mission to Syria’s capital by US diplomats since the early days of Syria’s civil war. The lightning offensive that toppled former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad on Dec. 8 was led by the Muslim Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in al-Qaeda’s
RSS