The Hong Kong government has condemned Britain’s public service broadcaster over “smearing” the Beijing-imposed security law in an article about the sentencing of 12 Hongkongers convicted of rioting.
Published on Saturday, the news piece from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reported on the sentencing of 12 Hongkongers over the 2019 storming of the city’s legislature, a milestone event during the protests and unrest that year. They received jail terms ranging between 54 and 82 months on Saturday morning.
After covering the court case, the article mentioned the national security law, saying: “protests led to the introduction of a tough security law that made it easier to prosecute protesters and reduced the city’s autonomy.”
In a statement published at around 8 pm on Saturday, the government accused the BBC of “smearing the city’s laws on safeguarding national security with false accusations” and creating a “negative impression” of the law.
Beijing inserted national security legislation directly into Hong Kong’s mini-constitution in June 2020 following a year of pro-democracy protests and unrest. It criminalised subversion, secession, collusion with foreign forces and terrorist acts – broadly defined to include disruption to transport and other infrastructure. The move gave police sweeping new powers and led to hundreds of arrests amid new legal precedents, while dozens of civil society groups disappeared. The authorities say it restored stability and peace to the city, rejecting criticism from trade partners, the UN and NGOs.
“Article 1 of the Hong Kong National Security Law (NSL) clearly stipulates the purpose of the enactment of the law is to ensure the resolute, full and faithful implementation of the policy of ‘one country, two systems’ under which the people of Hong Kong administer Hong Kong with a high degree of autonomy,” a government spokesperson said in the statement.
“The report concerned completely disregarded the relevant provision and slandered the NSL with false accusations that it reduced Hong Kong’s autonomy. It is necessary for the HKSAR Government to set the record straight,” the statement continued, adding that “no country will watch with folded arms acts and activities that endanger national security.”
“The report attempted… to mislead people into believing that the legislative intent of the NSL is to ‘make it easier to prosecute protesters’, thereby creating a negative impression of the law.”
By Sunday morning, BBC has revised the paragraphs relating to the national security law and added a note at the bottom of the article stating: “This article was updated to clarify details about Hong Kong’s national security law.”
The amended article reads: “The protests led to the introduction of a tough national security law that made illegal a wider range of dissenting acts and reduced the city’s autonomy. The law allows for China to have jurisdiction over HK national security cases in some circumstances.”
An additional paragraph states: “Beijing, which imposed the law on Hong Kong, and the city’s authorities argue the law is necessary to maintain stability and deny it has weakened autonomy.”
Special team for rebutting criticism
In January, the government announced it was setting up a “response and refute team” to promote national security legislation and rebut criticism of a proposed new law, known locally as Article 23, from “hostile forces.”
Over the past month, the city’s security chief Chris Tang – who was tasked with leading the team – has hit back at criticism of Article 23 from UK foreign minister David Cameron and US Consul General Gregory May.
Authorities have also condemned three other foreign media outlets over their coverage of Hong Kong’s proposed security law, targeting Bloomberg, The Guardian and The Washington Post.
Tang slammed a Bloomberg opinion piece that called the draft security legislation “worryingly vague,” and called a The Washington Post editorial on the proposed legislation “misleading and inappropriate.”
In early March, pro-establishment lawmaker Chan Siu-hung said in the legislature that Tang had done a great job as leader of the response and refute team, offering immediate responses to refute “false” and “misleading” information. HK01 reported that Chan had asked whether the team would continue its work after the completion of the legislation, .
Tang said in response that authorities would keep rebutting criticism in various ways. “The response and refute team will be disbanded one day… but we will continue to work with this model – to gather various smears against us, and to clarify and respond as soon as possible with different platforms. [We will] carry on with this spirit,” Tang said in Cantonese.
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