Plan to Roll Back Hong Kong Rights Assailed

HONG KONG — Critics on Monday assailed the actions of a Beijing-appointed panel that took aim over the weekend at the colony’s Bill of Rights and other laws, proposing changes that would roll back protections for some political freedoms here after the Chinese takeover in July.

The recommended changes would modify Hong Kong’s 1991 Bill of Rights, reinstituting old colonial laws meant to control political protests and the creation of political parties; they also would eliminate new laws allowing more people in Hong Kong to vote.

“These proposals are a great blow to freedom after 1997,” said Democratic Party member James To. “It’s a black day for human rights in Hong Kong.”

The move by the China-controlled Preparatory Committee, which met Sunday in Beijing, was not a surprise. While Hong Kong lawmakers have been busily building a body of civil rights guarantees since Beijing’s bloody 1989 crackdown on dissent in Tiananmen Square, Chinese leaders have promised after their July 1 takeover to undo all changes made without their approval.

The repeal of sections of the Bill of Rights has been under discussion since October 1995. But analysts had hoped that China would not go through with the move, which they say is bound to shake confidence and create legal questions.

The proposals will probably be formally approved by China’s National People’s Congress, then be passed into law by the China-backed Provisional Legislature this summer, a member of the Preparatory Committee said Monday.

But Hong Kong’s British governor, Chris Patten, called the recommendations “a recipe for confusion” and said their adoption “will cause enormous concern, both in the community and among those around the world who want to see a successful transition in Hong Kong.”

The committee has flagged 25 ordinances to be repealed or amended, including the resurrection of two colonial controls requiring demonstrators to request police permission for a demonstration a week ahead of time and to formally register all meetings with more than 20 people.

These old decrees were rarely used by the British rulers of Hong Kong and recently had been formally jettisoned.

“What could happen, if, absurdly, the [new] authorities decided to use repressive new public order laws to prosecute someone for holding a peaceful but unlicensed march on July 2?” Patten asked Monday. “How would the courts respond to such a challenge?”

Hong Kong has signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, while China has not, and legal experts say only test cases will establish whether international law or Hong Kong’s proposed post-1997 laws--minus the civil rights guarantees--will hold sway.

“Whether it was done deliberately or out of ignorance, [the latest Chinese move] is creating confusion,” said Hong Kong University law professor Nihal Jayawickrama. “These questions will have to be settled in courts.”

While Hong Kong’s economy and stock market continue to set records, defying the political uncertainties that once caused roller-coaster swings with every rhetorical exchange between London and Beijing, China seems to be doing little to bolster that cushion of confidence in the final months before the hand-over.

In December, China created its own legislature to replace the democratically elected lawmakers now in office. The body, known as the Provisional Legislature, will redefine Hong Kong’s laws and election guidelines to China’s liking before fresh balloting in 1998.

While Washington decried the shadow legislature as “unnecessary” and “unwise,” Beijing is dismantling Britain’s last-minute protective measures in Hong Kong as a deliberate display of sovereignty, political analysts say.

The Bill of Rights was one of three measures promised by the British government to reassure Hong Kong people who were leaving the territory by the thousands after the 1989 crackdown.

Britain pledged to build Hong Kong a new airport, to write it a strong Bill of Rights and to provide 50,000 passports for key households to stem the exodus.

“Now we have the new airport, but the Bill of Rights and the passports are a bit up in the air,” said one Hong Kong advisor to China.

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An anonymous Chinese official recently announced that China now has the secret list of 50,000 passport holders and said that Beijing would not honor the documents.

China’s actions have been “very disappointing,” said Law Yuk-kai, the director of Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor, which is overseeing Hong Kong’s conformance to international conventions. “This is a very serious challenge.”