Hong Kong should prepare a “civil force” to rebut criticism from the West over the city’s human rights record, which has been repeatedly called out since Beijing imposed a security law in 2020, multiple lawmakers have said.
The city’s opposition-free legislature on Monday convened a panel on constitutional affairs, in which Chief Secretary Eric Chan presented a government report on a routine review by the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Hong Kong, as part of China, is subject to a Universal Periodic Review (UPR) every four or five years over its rights record – a requirement for all 193 UN member states. Earlier this month, the UN council adopted a report which covered 428 recommendations to China, including 24 relating to Hong Kong.
See also: China rejects human rights recommendations from Western countries after routine UN review
Chan said the government had accepted 10 of those recommendations relating to areas such as the One Country, Two Systems governing framework, and the protection of human rights and the rule of law.
But authorities had rejected the remaining 14, among them suggestions to “repeal vague national security, counter-espionage, counterterrorism, and sedition laws, including the National Security Law,” from the US. Many of the rejected recommendations were based on “false information,” Chan said.
“Undeniably, an extremely small number of Western countries led by the US had political aims rather than basing [recommendations] on actual situations,” Chan told the panel in Cantonese.
Chan flew to Geneva twice – in January and earlier this month – as a member of the Chinese delegation to the UN, where he defended the city’s rights record. In January, he said the Beijing-imposed security law had put Hong Kong “back on track” after large-scale pro-democracy protests and unrest in 2019.
Lawmakers sitting on the panel on Monday praised Chan’s work in Geneva. Holden Chow said Chan had “relentlessly rebutted the smearing” from the West, while Priscilla Leung hailed Chan’s rebuttal as “pulling no punches.”
Some lawmakers also suggested government equip civil society actors with information and fact sheets so that they could respond to overseas criticism of Hong Kong during international exchanges.
“Foreign powers have long weaponised and politicised human rights to gain advantage over bilateral works with [China] and [Hong Kong],” Ma Fung-kwok said in Cantonese.
“It is a form of international struggle. While the UN makes a platform for officials, it’s more important that the civil force knows what to do” when faced with foreign criticism, he added.
Ma said businesspeople, athletes, and artists who regularly went abroad should be trained for such encounters and be able to “speak up for Hong Kong.”
Junius Ho, who spoke during a UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva in March, said more NGOs in the city should apply for a status that would allow them to participate in UN hearings.
In March, Ho was speaking on behalf of the International Probono Legal Services Association, a pro-Beijing organisation he co-founded in 2018 that applied for consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council in 2022.
He said on Monday that only about 100 NGOs from China and Hong Kong had acquired the status – far behind the US, which had over 1,000.
That created a disadvantage regarding which NGOs were allowed to speak at UN hearings, Ho said, adding that “there was a need to increase our forces.”
During the council meeting earlier this month, more than half of the speaking slots given to NGOs went to pro-government groups, according to AFP.
Separately, Nixie Lam suggested the government organise mock UN hearings for young people dedicated to international lobbying, while Carmen Kan asked Chan to prepare fact sheets about the city’s security for members of business sector.
They said that could better equip residents to be able to “tell a good Hong Kong story” – referring to the government’s bid to shape a positive image of the city internationally.
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.
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