Hong Kong’s top legal official told residents to steer clear of criticisms of the government that stray too far from the facts, as officials defend Beijing’s plan to overhaul the territory’s elections.
Hong Kong Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng (鄭若驊) said in an interview yesterday that opinions are “no more than an utterance of no value” if the facts are not established.
Cheng was answering a question about what kind of criticism would be legal in Hong Kong as it implements a range of legal changes, including a National Security Law and the electoral overhaul.
Photo: Bloomberg
“Some of the statements that are sometimes uttered, that we hear, are actually not based on facts, or perhaps oblivious of the facts that exist,” Cheng told Bloomberg Television. “And I think that is what one has to be very careful not to embark upon.”
Officials in Beijing and Hong Kong are fanning out to defend the most significant changes to the territory’s political system since its return to Chinese rule in 1997.
Chinese lawmakers are expected later this week to approve a sweeping electoral overhaul that would require candidates for elected office to be “patriots” and secure nominations from a pro-Beijing committee.
The moves, including Beijing’s imposition of a National Security Law on Hong Kong outlawing speech deemed subversive or secessionist, have been criticized by the US and the UK as a breach of China’s treaty commitment to maintain the territory’s “high degree of autonomy.”
On Monday, a group of US lawmakers, including US senators Ed Markey and Mitt Romney, called on US President Joe Biden’s administration to work with allies and partners to support Hong Kongers.
Cheng — who was among senior officials sanctioned by the US Department of the Treasury in August last year on allegations of “undermining Hong Kong’s autonomy” — yesterday reiterated the government’s argument that the security law had restored stability.
“Please look at the actual facts and then see what’s happening in Hong Kong,” she said in response to the lawmakers’ statement.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS