UPDATES: Petition on Article 23

First, SHKCA would like to express our deepest gratitude to all of you who supported our petition efforts and left inspirational and powerful comments while signing. We are glad to see that so many of us students from all over the World were united as one voice to promote freedom of expression and the use of democratic means in legislative considerations in Hong-Kong. Your support has really made an impact in reminding students how important it is to stand up to certain fundamental rights of the individual and the civic participant.

Back to the controversy, the HKSAR government closed public consultation channels on the issue of Article 23 legislation in Hong-Kong on December 24th, 2002. With little time left and efficient coordination, SHKCA was however able to send out a press release to the major newspapers in Hong-Kong and to some local Chinese newspapers in the Bay Area to publicise our petition goals. We were quite excited to learn later from one of our petition supporters from London that SHKCA's efforts were quoted in the prominent newspaper, Mingpao.

Fortunately also, we were able to forward our petition letter and signatures to the Security Bureau before the 12/24 deadline, although it is difficult to know at present whether it has actually been reviewed by the legislative coucil. The cover letter that accompanied our petition and explained our cause for action is posted below. We will keep you updated on further developments in this Article 23 legislation issue.

Letter to the Security Bureau

To the Security Bureau:

We* are a group of overseas college students who, under the name of the Society of Hong-Kong and Chinese Affairs (a non-politically linked student organization), have decided to voice our opinions on Article 23 implemenation in the form of a petition, launched on November 15th.

The petition letter is herein enclosed and asks in summary that the HKSAR government extends the public consultation period and issues an official White Bill for public review. After carefully analyzing the consultation documents and summary posted on the Security Bureau website, we are unfortunately left unsatisfied with some rather important vague points. For example:

In the Summary of Consultation Document, point 11 (b) explains that it would be an offense to "incite others to violence or public disorder that seriously endangers the stability of the state or of HKSAR". Later on point 16 says that "The related inchoate and accomplice offences of [such and such]...are also proposed to be codified".

Both of these points are left too uncertain to satisfatorily provide adequate knowledge of the laws that would affect Hong-Kong citizens. The fact that the stability of the state or of HKSAR is a last-minute judgement call would certainly curtail the range of actions Hong-Kong citizens would be willing to take --merely-- to express their opinions or requests --without-- any aim to incite unlawful offences. Next the fact that other related offences will be codified after the end of the consultation period seems to unfairly subject Hong-Kong citizens to amendments --post-factum--, henceforth taking away their ability to have had a fair opportunity to voice their opinion.

Due to the remaining vagueness of the proposals, we* believe that the issuance of a white bill detailing the exact content of the laws and definitions of the terms will allow Hong-Kong citizens to have a more educated say on vital matters affecting their well-being and rights as human beings.

We* therefore enjoin the Security Bureau (and the LEGCO committee working on Article 23 proposals) to seriously consider issuing a white bill and take into account that overseas students, whether Hong-Kong citizens or not, are taking Hong-Kong's future at heart and hope to see it continue to strive as an optimally free country.

Sincerely,

Society of Hong-Kong and Chinese Affairs

Note: 'we*' refers to Society of Hong-Kong and Chinese Affairs.

--> Read the Petition Letter
--> View signatures page