China's security law in Hong Kong breaches international obligations: UN

UN special rapporteurs on human rights have warned that China’s national security law for Hong Kong breached international obligations and violated human rights. In an open joint letter UN dispatched to China on September 3, it said that the controversial national security law in Hong Kong posed a serious risk to fundamental rights and clamped the right to freedom of expression in the Special Administrative Region (SAR). Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights was scrutinizing the new law regarding its compliance with international human rights, UN spokesperson Rupert Colville said in a press release.

Further questioning the law that criminalizes activism, secession, protests, and foreign collusion—as terrorism, the UN expressed concerns about several hundred people that have been arrested by the police forces under it. Colville said that the rapporteurs were  “very much actively counting, trying to get those kinds of details,” adding, the panel would review the individual cases. Further, he called some offenses as listed “vague and overly broad” under the new draconian law adopted by China's National People's Congress. The 14 pages letter was sent by Fionnuala Ni Aolain, UN special rapporteur on protecting human rights while countering terrorism, as well as six other UN envoys. Signatories voiced concerns in the document against China, saying, that the law it imposed in Hong Kong "lacks precision in key respects, infringes on certain fundamental rights."

"The National Security Law poses a serious risk that those fundamental freedoms and due process protections may be infringed upon," the letter said, warning that the legislation may "impinge impermissibly on the rights to freedom of opinion, expression and of peaceful assembly.”

High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet, the OHCHR official sounded concerns about restrictions on freedom and insisted that such laws “should never be used to criminalize conduct and expression that is protected under international human rights law”.

Offenses under the new national security legislation violated the article 15.1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, according to Colville. He objected to the chemical agents against demonstrators, sexual harassment and assault of women protesters in the police stations, and alleged harassment of health care workers during the times of coronavirus pandemic. UN further alleged that China’s law was imposed without prior consultation of the people of Hong Kong and violates “fair trial of detainees”. UN raised objection at the “sharp rise in arbitrary detention" in Hong Kong by the security forces. 

Read: Taiwan Denounces China's ‘vulgar Threats’ To Czech Official Over His Visit To Island

Read: Members Named To Panel Probing WHO's Pandemic Response

Arrests of lawyers, harassment of critics

Earlier, in a separate statement, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said that he had sought clarifications from the Chinese authorities about arrests of lawyers, and harassment and intimidation of Government critics and NGO workers in Hong Kong. He accused authorities  of “too often reflexively confusing the legitimate role of lawyers and activists with threats to public order and security.” UN High Commissioner’s statement came I the backdrop of over 250 human rights lawyers, legal assistants, and activists detention by the security forces in Hong Kong with charges of “subversion of state power,” which carries a sentence of 15 years to life in prison. 

Read: Election Chiefs Worry About Uncertainty As Voting Nears

Read: 2nd Crew Member, Dead Cows Found After Ship Sank Off Japan

(Image Credit: UN Website)