Dateline: HONG KONGThe Hong Kong security chief insisted Tuesday that a planned anti-subversion law poses no threats to the territory's Roman Catholic Church, as some have feared.
The church leader, Bishop Joseph Zen, recently expressed worries that the law will hinder contacts between Hong Kong Catholics and their counterparts in the mainland, some of whom worship in an officially sanctioned church that does not report to the Vatican. Other mainland Catholics worship in underground congregations loyal to the Vatican.
During a question-and-answer session Tuesday about the anti-subversion bill, lawmaker Abraham Shek asked Secretary for Security Regina Ip whether the Hong Kong church could be outlawed if Beijing were ever to ban the mainland's underground church over national security concerns.
"I think this is impossible," Ip said.
Ip said the Hong Kong church would not be threatened, because it is subordinate to the Vatican, not to the underground church in China. The anti-subversion bill would allow Hong Kong to ban groups here that are subordinate to groups banned in China on national security grounds.
A U.S. human rights group charged Tuesday that the planned law will erode Hong Kong's freedoms and urged lawmakers to reject it.
"The clock is ticking on civil liberties in Hong Kong," said Brad Adams, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division.
The anti-subversion measure has come under fierce attack from rights groups, pro-democracy lawmakers and others since officials began work on it last year.
But Hong Kong's government has solid support from pro-Beijing and pro-business allies in the Legislative Council so the bill appears headed for certain passage in the next few months.
Human Rights Watch said the bill as currently written would "introduce Chinese legal standards through the back door and could forever erode the civil liberties" that distinguish Hong Kong from mainland China.
Hong Kong's government says the law is needed to protect national security and officials have repeatedly disputed suggestions that Hong Kong's freedoms are under threat.
Since Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, it has been governed under a so-called "one country, two systems" arrangement that guarantees considerable local autonomy and civil liberties, including freedoms of speech, press and religion. Officials say those are untouchable.
But Hong Kong also has been constitutionally required to outlaw subversion, sedition, treason, secession and other crimes against the state. The planned legislation has stirred up one of the territory's biggest political fights since the hand-over.
Human Rights Watch said similar subversion laws in mainland China are regularly used to convict and imprison journalists, labor activists, Internet entrepreneurs and academics.
Concerns have been raised that the law will be used to target the Falun Gong meditation sect, which is outlawed as an "evil cult" in China but thus far remains legal in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong government has insisted it has no plans to go after Falun Gong.
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