Political situation
Written by: Zhou Lixi
2020-04-27 07:00
Last update date: 2020-04-27 07:00Amid severe social disintegration, RTHK has received a large number of collective complaints about political opinions due to current political affairs programs. The complaint messages received by the Equal Opportunities Commission are not overwhelming. Recently, a single case against a lawyer criticizing demonstrators online, I received 14,000 complaint messages. Equal Opportunity Chairman Zhu Minjian described in an exclusive interview with "Hong Kong 01" that the number of formatted complaints has been unprecedented in the past. "Even the simplest reply, because you have to enter the address one by one, it will take almost a month." , Give up the service practice of sticking to one-on-one reply in the past. Zhu Minjian, who has repeatedly commented on discrimination-related incidents, said that he has the responsibility to explain the discrimination laws. Even if he is criticized afterwards, he is still duty-bound.
Chief Executive Lin Zhengyue repeatedly refused to close the customs in early January on the grounds that it did not comply with the WHO's guidelines that "actions that encourage discrimination" should not be taken. Zhu Minjian pointed out that in fact the Hong Kong government ’s government behavior itself is not restricted by the Race Discrimination Ordinance. In addition, the Disability Discrimination Ordinance stipulates that as long as there are reasonable anti-epidemic grounds, even if the anti-discrimination laws are violated, there are exemptions. He estimated that the Hong Kong government's decision at the time was to try to balance the considerations between epidemic prevention and discrimination.
Zhu Minjian pointed out that since the incident of anti-revision amendments last year, Equal Opportunities has received many large-scale model complaints, but the parties did not complain to them and could not directly trace the incident. (Photo by Gao Zhongming)
Model email complaints emerged from last year
The Equal Opportunity has always responded to the complaint enquiries received one by one, but since the social incident last year, the model of the e-mail complaint came into being. In the face of a large number of large-scale complaints, Zhu Minjian pointed out that it is difficult for the Equal Opportunity to insist on individual responses. Send a statement online to respond in one go. Zhu Minjian revealed that the origin of the large-scale model complaint was that during the anti-revision incident, it was alleged that a female demonstrator was dragged to irregular clothing after being arrested. In the face of hundreds of complaints at that time, the EOC still tried to reply one by one as much as possible, but because it was a serious allegation involving sexual violence by the police, the EOC could not be judged only by a fragmented text description, so the purpose of the reply is to invite the party to personally Equal opportunity complaints, otherwise the equal opportunity cannot be traced directly.
Social events heat up and third party complaints become mainstream
As social events heat up, Zhu Minjian found that complaints initiated by a third party became mainstream. For example, hotels, restaurants refused to serve certain guests, resident status, foreigners and other complaints. There were no parties involved, making it difficult for the equal opportunity to deal with. A statement can be issued in response to legally explain whether the case will have a chance to violate the Anti-Discrimination Law and certain actions should not be recognized.
Speaking on controversy, criticized and explained the legal principles of the regulations as due
As a representative of Equal Opportunities, Zhu Minjian actively spoke on many different social incidents involving discrimination, but also received a lot of criticism. Even the signed staff who issued the relevant statements were criticized. For example, Equal Opportunity once explained that there was no violation of the words of gloating about police officers who were infected with pneumonia, and they were questioned to encourage related behaviors in disguise: "We understand public sentiment, but in any case, the law is the law, and the legal provisions are now limited to such words We can only let the public recognize this limitation. If the situation continues in the future and becomes a trend, does it mean that the law needs to be reviewed and whether there is room for revision? This can be studied. We are open. "He believes that the anti-discrimination laws are explained to the public What can be covered is what it should be. Even if the Equal Opportunity is blamed after making a statement, it is still duty-bound.
The Glorious Ice Room ’s refusal to entertain Mandarin-speaking customers was once full of storms. Discrimination complaints about the epidemic have risen from 600 in the last month to more than 1,600 recently. Zhu Minjian also fought against the former Director of the Civil Service Bureau, Wang Yongping, because of the glorious ice room incident, whether the conduct constituted discrimination and was reasonable, and the face was hot. Zhu Minjian explained that the relevant laws and regulations are clear, and suffering from an epidemic, and even considered to be subject to discrimination under the epidemic, are also covered by the Disability Discrimination Ordinance, but as long as the behavior is reasonable for epidemic prevention, there are exemptions. Eventually, in the case of restaurant discrimination, it is difficult for follow-up opportunities to be followed up if no discriminators commit the crime. They can only persuade restaurants to change their wording and make it clear that people who have visited certain areas are not accepted.
Reasonable epidemic prevention and discrimination also have exemption
At the beginning of the outbreak at the beginning of the year in the mainland, Chief Executive Lin Zheng Yuee was asked at the press conference whether the government would not consider further customs clearance. At that time, she pointed out that the comprehensive closure or targeted at certain types of people does not comply with the WHO's guidelines that "should not take actions that will promote discrimination". Instead, it asks why when it comes to dealing with public health issues, it is divided by residence or even user registration. Divide.
Zhu Minjian explained that I believe that Lin Zheng mainly wants to follow the WHO's principled guidelines, and the Hong Kong's "Race Discrimination Ordinance" itself does not cover all government actions, because the legislation takes into account that the government will involve different aspects in law enforcement and immigration control. Race, if it covers all behaviors in one legislature, it will be difficult to implement. Therefore, the government has a "free death gold medal" in this Ordinance.
Furthermore, the aforementioned Disability Discrimination Ordinance guarantees reasonable anti-epidemic measures. Article 61 of the Regulations stipulates that when a person ’s disability belongs to any infectious disease and the discriminatory acts are reasonably needed to protect public health, even if another person discriminates against the disabled person, the regulations do not apply.
Zhu Minjian estimated that the government might think that once the customs clearance was too thorough, it might constitute discrimination in the epidemic situation at that time, so it only adopted limited entry restrictions on the mainland to try to balance epidemic prevention and discrimination. "The epidemic prevention measures are actually balanced. In balancing exercise, the entire operation should balance risks, how to effectively fight against epidemics, and how to protect the rights of residents. Of course, it is also necessary to consider how to avoid violations of discrimination regulations. This is all true. There are appropriate exemption clauses in the Ordinance, but the government must also understand that if public sentiment feels that it has passed the fire, it must be resolved. "
Later, in Daegu, South Korea, a large-scale outbreak occurred in a short period of time, and the Hong Kong government quickly announced the closure of South Korea. Zhu Minjian pointed out that there was also a voice at the time questioning whether the Hong Kong government discriminated, but he analyzed that because the Hong Kong government is aimed at people who enter from South Korea, rather than disallowing Koreans to enter, the definition is not consistent with racial discrimination.
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