Numerous communities in the HongKong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) are urging the HKSAR government to draft laws to protect national security, according to the HKSAR government.
And the HKSAR government said Wednesday that it hopes to gazette the draft bill in as early as February next year.
Regina Ip, the HKSAR secretary for security revealed the public demand during the HKSAR Legislative Council's weekly question and answer session Wednesday. She said within the first month of the public consultation, about 130 public responses were received by the HKSAR government.
The government has received numerous opinions from organizations and individuals giving views that they object to a more time-consuming white paper consultation in favor of a quicker process, ie, the ongoing blue-paper consultation, she said.
"And also, numerous people take the view that Article 23 should be implemented as soon as possible," she added.
Legislative Councilor Chan Kam Lam echoed Ip, stressed that since Hong Kong has returned to the motherland for more than five years now, further delay is not the ideal way to deal with the matter.
Article 23 of the Basic Law of Hong Kong stipulates "the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall enact laws on its own to prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People's Government, or theft of state secrets."
Ip reiterated that in order to speed up the legislation process, the government has opted for a blue-paper consultation due to relatively less complicated technical details involved in drafting law on Article 23, compared with the drafting of other laws.
"We are confident that at the end of the consultation period when we have listened to all the views, we can finish drafting the bill for it to be gazetted to be read for the first time at Legco in February," Ip said.
Within the first month of the consultation period, HKSAR officials have attended 30 seminars and 30 broadcast station interviews in a bid to explain the government's stand on the issue, Ip added.
According to Article 23, the drafted law shall also "prohibit foreign political organizations or bodies from conducting political activities in the Region and prohibit political organizations or bodies of the Region from establishing ties with foreign political organizations or bodies."
(Xinhua News Agency October 24, 2002)
