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The rights group says the law enacted by Beijing has put Hong Kong on the path to becoming a police state and has created a “human rights emergency”.
Hong Kong authorities are using the national security law established by China a year ago to address legitimate dissent, “diminish” territorial freedoms and create fear, Amnesty International said in a report released on Tuesday.
Extensive words National Security Act (NSL) punishes subversive activities, terrorism, links to foreign forces, and inter-life imprisonment.
China and Hong Kong said the legislation was necessary to restore stability in a semi-autonomous territory, sometimes becoming violent in 2019 after pro-democracy protests, and only a small number of people would be harmed.
But in its report, on behalf of National Security, Amnesty said at least 118 people have been arrested since the NSL came into force and the government has “continued to arrest and prosecute NSL-dependent people.” they exercised their rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association ”.
Most of those arrested are pro-democracy activists and politicians, including a group of detainees organizing a primary they later delayed the selection of candidates for Legislative Council elections. In November, four pro-democracy members of the territorial legislature were expelled from chamber seats – accused ‘endangering national security‘.
“Within a year, the National Security Act has paved the way for Hong Kong to become a police state and create a human rights emergency for people living there,” Yamini Mishra, Amnesty International’s regional director for Asia-Pacific, said in a statement. .
“From politics to culture, from education to the media, the law has polluted all parts of Hong Kong society and must foster an atmosphere of fear that forces people to think about what they say, what they tweet and how they live.
“After all, this harsh and repressive legislation threatens to turn the city into a human rights desert in mainland China.”
Amnesty is based on its latest report examining court rulings, court notices and interviews with activists targeted by the security law over the past 12 months.
He found that the government had “repeatedly” used national security “as an excuse to justify censorship, harassment, arrests and prosecution”.
“There is clear evidence that the so-called human rights protections established in the NSL are effectively ineffective, and at the same time go beyond the protections under Hong Kong’s common law,” the report says.
People charged under the law are denied bail if they do not prove that they will not continue to “take actions that endanger national security,” and Amnesty said 70% of those officially prosecuted under security law are being held. remanded in custody. He stated that the presumption of innocence is “an essential part of the right to a fair trial”.
Among those under NSL are Jimmy Lai, a retail mogul who became the media mogul who created the pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily. After briefly accepting bail on the stringent conditions that led to her house arrest, 73-year-old Lai was there he returned to prison in December. Apple Daily itself turn off last week, his editor and senior executives were arrested under the NSL and the company’s assets were frozen – even by law – which meant he couldn’t pay employees and vendors despite having the money to do so.
Amnesty said that as of June 23, 2021, 64 people had been implicated by law in 47 pre-trial detention.
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