{"id":72985,"date":"2024-03-19T14:16:07","date_gmt":"2024-03-19T14:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/hong-kong-law-imposes-life-imprisonment-for-treason-insurrection-the-express-tribune\/"},"modified":"2024-03-19T14:16:07","modified_gmt":"2024-03-19T14:16:07","slug":"hong-kong-law-imposes-life-imprisonment-for-treason-insurrection-the-express-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/hong-kong-law-imposes-life-imprisonment-for-treason-insurrection-the-express-tribune\/","title":{"rendered":"Hong Kong law imposes life imprisonment for treason, insurrection | The Express Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\nISTANBUL:
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hong Kong lawmakers on Tuesday unanimously passed a domestic national security bill, in a first since the semi-autonomous region was returned to Chinese rule in 1997.<\/p>\n

All 89 lawmakers voted to pass the bill, which will take effect on Saturday.<\/p>\n

After it takes effect as law, the Safeguarding National Security Law covers 39 offenses divided into five categories: treason; insurrection, incitement to mutiny and disaffection, and acts with seditious intention; sabotage; external interference; and theft of state secrets and espionage.<\/p>\n

The 212-page bill under Article 23 of China\u2019s semi-autonomous region\u2019s Basic Law was submitted to the Legislative Council for deliberations and a vote early this month.<\/p>\n

Read also:\u00a0Pragmatism takes centre stage at China’s NPC<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

According to the Hong Kong Free Press, in an unusual move, the council\u2019s President Andrew Leung also cast a vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the president of the Legislative Council, I would not vote in usual circumstances,\u201d Leung said. \u201cHowever, legislation of Article 23 is not just any other piece of legislation, it relates to national security in Hong Kong, it is of the utmost importance, so at this historic moment I will vote in favor of the bill.\u201d<\/p>\n

State secrets, the law says, include defence, diplomatic, and foreign affairs, as well as national security, economic, social, and technological developments.<\/p>\n

Custody without charges extended<\/strong><\/p>\n

Under the new law, people convicted of treason, insurrection, sabotage by \u201ccolluding with external forces,\u201d or inciting members of the Chinese armed forces to mutiny can be sentenced to life, while those found guilty of illegally disclosing state secrets can get 10 years behind bars.<\/p>\n

It also empowers the court to send any suspect to custody, without charge, for one week which can be extended for a second week \u2013 or 16 days total.<\/p>\n

Currently, a person can be held by authorities for only two days, or 48 hours, without a charge.<\/p>\n

Under the new law, police can even ask courts to block suspects from engaging \u201cparticular lawyers\u201d if doing so could endanger national security.<\/p>\n

Read:\u00a0China unveils 2024 growth targets with focus on high-quality development<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The law says: \u201cThe highest principle of the One Country, Two Systems policy is to safeguard national sovereignty, security, and development interests.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hong Kong, once arguably the world\u2019s top business attraction and freest city, has seen radical political and security changes ever since 2019, which saw year-long demonstrations against the local government.<\/p>\n

In July 2020, China imposed a controversial national security law while the method of local elections to the Legislative Council and District Council was also changed.<\/p>\n

The new law also proposes that human rights \u201care to be respected and protected, including the rights to free speech, freedom of the press and publication, freedom of association and assembly as enjoyed\u201d under the Basic Law and international covenants that apply to Hong Kong.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ISTANBUL: Hong Kong lawmakers on Tuesday unanimously passed a domestic national security bill, in a first since the semi-autonomous region was returned to Chinese rule in 1997. All 89 lawmakers voted to pass the bill, which will take effect on Saturday. After it takes effect as law, the Safeguarding National Security Law covers 39 offenses […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72986,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.tribune.com.pk\/media\/images\/Hong-Kong's-Legislative-Concil1710854203-0\/Hong-Kong's-Legislative-Concil1710854203-0.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}