Hong Kong Approves New National Security Law

According to critics, however, this step will erode even more civil liberties.

Article 23 targets violations such as external intervention and rebellion, and punishments include death sentences.

The document has quickly passed through the final phase by the city's pro-Pejkin parliament in less than two weeks.

Article 23 expands a contracting law on national security, passed earlier by China.

That law has already committed criminal acts to the country's secession, overthrowing power, terrorism and co-operation with foreign forces in Hong Kong.

However, Hong Kong leader John Lee has said Article 23 is necessary to guard from the possible “beatoff and other situations that could cause trouble”, especially ideas for an independent “Hong Kong”.

It has seen the adoption of the law as a historical “moment for Hong Kong people who have been waiting for more than 26 years”.

China's Deputy Prime Minister, Ding Xuexiang, has said that the adoption of the law would protect “the top national interests” and enable Hong Kong to focus on economic development.

Tens of people were arrested after the national security law was passed in 2020.

Critics believe he has created a climate of fear in Hong Kong.

The director of the international agency Amnesty International for China, Sarah Brooks, has said that the new law “carries new human rights shocks in the city”, as far as Maya Wang, responsible for China's duty to the other international human rights organisation, Human Rights Watch, has said the new law will put Hong Kong into “the new authoritarianism “”.

When the United Kingdom handed over certain freedoms to China in 1997 to Hong Kong, the city had been granted some freedoms for 50 years, under the signed agreement, familiar with the “one state system, two system”.

But the West believes the new laws could jeopardise freedoms in this region and damage Hong Kong's status as a business leadership centre. rel