The government on Wednesday condemned Hong Kong Watch and 16 co-signatories for attempting to provoke discontent among religious personnel and followers against Article 23 by smearing the clauses on treason and misprision of treason and claiming that the requirement of “disclosure of commission of treason by others” targets religions.
A government spokesman said the offenses of treason and misprision of treason, whether in Hong Kong or in other common law jurisdictions, have existed for a long time.
“They do not target religious personnel or followers, and have nothing to do with freedom of religion,” he said.
“In any case, freedom of religion is not for protecting anyone who has committed serious offenses from legal sanctions.”
The spokesman also blasted Hong Kong Watch and the co-signatories for they forcibly linked the relevant requirement to freedom of religion in attempts to smear the legislative work using religion as a pretext as well as attempting to provoke the repulsion of the religious personnel and followers against the government.
“They even made demagogic and exaggerated remarks in an attempt to mislead the international community into believing that the proposal of the SAR government runs contrary to international standards, thereby creating a negative impression of the Basic Law Article 23 legislation, demonstrating their malicious intent.”
The spokesman added that misprision of treason remains a common law offense in the UK while countries with a common law system, including the US, Canada and Singapore, have codified the offense of misprision of treason.
These countries have not specified any relevant exceptions, he noted.
“It is a blatant, shameless and barbaric intervention, and is also a typical example of double standards,” the spokesman said.
Hong Kong United Times丨香港聯合時報丨HKUT 