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Tan Dezhi Arrested | Can the reactivation of the ancient colonial law be guilty of inciting hatred of the government? Scholar: The definition is too broad

2020-09-06T07:42:13.000Z


The vice chairman of the People's Forces, Tan Dezhi (soon to be), was arrested by the National Security Department of the police today (September 6). The police accused him of violating Article 10 of the Criminal Offences Ordinance and published sedition. The crime of incitement listed in Article 10 of the Criminal Offences Ordinance was a product of the 1967 riots. It has been nearly 50 years since the ordinance came into effect, and the last amendment was in 1970. The police cited this example in March this year and arrested Cheng Liqiong, the chairman of the Central and Western District Council. Chief Lecturer Zhang Daming of the Hong Kong University Law School believes that the meaning of the Ordinance itself is extremely broad and vague. According to the logic of this police arrest, it may objectively lead to "criticizing the government and breaking the law" in the future. The situation is worrying. Senior Counsel Tang Jiahua, a member of the Executive Council, pointed out that the law will not be "outdated." If the speech itself involves inciting hatred between different social groups, it will be regulated by the relevant law.


Political situation

Written by: Lin Jian

2020-09-06 15:28

Last update date: 2020-09-06 15:29

The vice chairman of the People's Forces, Tan Dezhi (soon to be), was arrested by the National Security Department of the police today (September 6). The police accused him of violating Article 10 of the Criminal Offences Ordinance and published sedition.

The crime of incitement listed in Article 10 of the Criminal Offences Ordinance was a product of the 1967 riots. It has been nearly 50 years since the ordinance came into effect, and the last amendment was in 1970.

The police cited this example in March this year and arrested Cheng Liqiong, the chairman of the Central and Western District Council.

Chief Lecturer Zhang Daming of the Hong Kong University Law School believes that the meaning of the Ordinance itself is extremely broad and vague. According to the logic of this police arrest, it may objectively lead to "criticizing the government and breaking the law" in the future. The situation is worrying.

Senior Counsel Tang Jiahua, a member of the Executive Council, pointed out that the law will not be "outdated." If the speech itself involves inciting hatred between different social groups, it will be regulated by the relevant law.

Senior Superintendent Li Guihua of the National Security Service said at a press conference that the arrested man had held 29 lectures between the end of June and August.

(Photo by Huang Weimin)

"Sedition" was originally aimed at hating Her Majesty the Queen

During a briefing to the media, Senior Superintendent Li Guihua of the National Security Service mentioned that Tan Dezhi was arrested on suspicion of publishing sedition under Article 10 of the Criminal Offences Ordinance.

There are two reasons: first, the publication of inflammatory remarks arouses hatred and contempt for the government; second, the publication of words causes dissatisfaction among the people.

As for why it was enforced by the National Security Department, Li Guihua explained that it was indeed an investigation in accordance with the National Security Law to examine whether the other party had secessioned the country. However, after investigation and consultation with the Department of Justice, he believed that Article 10 of the Criminal Offences Ordinance was used as the Arrest is more appropriate.

Section 10 of the Crimes Ordinance states that any person—

(a) Do, attempt to do, prepare to do, or conspire with any person to do an act with seditious intent; or


(b) Publish seditious text; or


(c) Print, publish, sell, offer to sell, distribute, display or copy seditious Publication; or


(d) import a seditious publication (except if he has no reason to believe that the publication is a seditious publication),

It is a crime. The first conviction is punishable by a fine of $5,000 and imprisonment for 2 years, and the subsequent conviction is punishable by 3 years in jail; the seditious publications are confiscated and returned to the government.

The crime of "seditious intent" in Article 9 of the Criminal Offences Ordinance was also a product of the 1967 riots and was mainly targeted at the anti-British colonial leftists at that time.

As for what is meant by "seditious intent", Article 9 refers to "hate or despise Her Majesty the Queen", "cause or deepen hatred and hostility among residents of different classes in Hong Kong", "inciting others to use violence", etc.

The law has not been used for a long time since the return of the law. By March of this year, the Democratic Party, Zheng Liqiong, was arrested by the police under Articles 9 and 10 of the Criminal Offences Ordinance for sharing information on a police officer suspected of shooting blind Indonesian female journalists.

The arrest of Tan Dezhi is the second time in a year that the police have used "sedition" to arrest political figures.

Zhang Daming believes that the arrest had an objective effect of "crimination with words" in politics; Tang Jiahua disagreed.

(Profile picture)

Zhang Daming: criticizing the government or breaking the law

Zhang Daming pointed out that the Hong Kong Bill of Rights Ordinance had not yet been enacted when Articles 9 and 10 "Sedition Offence" were enacted, and the content of human rights protection in the Basic Law has not appeared, and the content is likely to be inconsistent with the protection of human rights.

Therefore, after the Occupy Central Incident in 2014, some institutionalized people asked the Attorney General to use "sedition" to prosecute the relevant person. The Attorney General did not listen to it. I believe that one of the important reasons is that the regulations are very likely to be incompatible with human rights protection; the court interprets this In the case of legislation, it should not be interpreted literally, but should depend on the actual situation, such as whether there are extreme circumstances such as inciting serious violence.

As for the two major reasons for arrest Li Guihua mentioned, including the circumstances that caused hatred and contempt of the government, and some of the words also caused dissatisfaction among the people, Zhang Daming believed that the coverage was very broad and vague.

He is worried that it is easy to create an objective effect based on the standards of this arrest: criticizing the government in the future will be regarded as illegal and criminalized by words.

He also pointed out that the police claimed that the Department of Justice was consulted for the arrests, and that the Department of Justice’s work has been accused of politicization on many occasions in recent years. In addition, the reasons for this arrest are difficult to understand. legal".

"Quiebi" Tan Dezhishe was arrested for publishing seditious text: Propaganda content aroused hatred of the government

Tan Dezhi sent masks to "five major demands" and raised the purple flag to violate national security laws

[Zheng Liqiong Arrested] Unearthed from the colonial sedition crime "causing hostility among different classes" was also recruited

Tang Jiahua: Laws will not be "outdated"

Tang Jiahua pointed out that the law will not be "outdated." The Criminal Offences Ordinance itself is part of Hong Kong's laws. Whether individual provisions comply with human rights protection depends on the content of individual cases.

He emphasized that the protection of human rights and freedom can be regulated by a certain degree of legislation in response to social security. For example, when speech involves the promotion of hatred, causing hostility between different groups in society, etc., the law can be dealt with in the same way. The protection of freedom in the International Covenant on Political Rights is not absolute.

As to whether the reason for the police arrest this time is too vague, Tang Jiahua pointed out that it is inconvenient to discuss the case during the judicial process.

However, he said that for the time being, he did not see that "criticizing the government" would arouse hatred and dissatisfaction among different classes of society, and he was not worried about "crimination with words."

Tan Dezhi Zhang Daming Tang Jiahua Hong Kong version of the National Security Law

Source: hk1

All news articles on 2020-09-06

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