National Security and Article 23 of Basic Law
Hong Kong SAR has the constitutional duty of safeguarding national security by virtue of Article 23 of the Basic Law. In 2002, in order to fulfil their constitutional duty, the government tabled an anti-subversion bill. However, as with national security legislation in many countries, civil libertarians feared powers in the proposed law would erode the fundamental freedoms of the people. With the backdrop of an authoritarian sovereign state, there were fears that the proposed law would be used to suppress organisations which disagreed with the policies of either the Special Administrative Region or the Central Government.
Read more about this topic: Human Rights In Hong Kong
Famous quotes containing the words national, security, article, basic and/or law:
“The religion of England is part of good-breeding. When you see on the continent the well-dressed Englishman come into his ambassador’s chapel and put his face for silent prayer into his smooth-brushed hat, you cannot help feeling how much national pride prays with him, and the religion of a gentleman.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The reins of government have been so long slackened, that I fear the people will not quietly submit to those restraints which are necessary for the peace and security of the community.”
—Abigail Adams (1744–1818)
“Nature’s law says that the strong must prevent the weak from living, but only in a newspaper article or textbook can this be packaged into a comprehensible thought. In the soup of everyday life, in the mixture of minutia from which human relations are woven, it is not a law. It is a logical incongruity when both strong and weak fall victim to their mutual relations, unconsciously subservient to some unknown guiding power that stands outside of life, irrelevant to man.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“It is easier to move rivers and mountains than to change a person’s basic nature.”
—Chinese proverb.
“For centuries the death penalty, often accompanied by barbarous refinements, has been trying to hold crime in check; yet crime persists. Why? Because the instincts that are warring in man are not, as the law claims, constant forces in a state of equilibrium.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)