District Council overhaul ‘raises serious concerns’ EU says, as Hong Kong gov’t condemns criticism
Hong Kong Free Press
Hong Kong’s District Council overhaul, along with other developments including the Beijing-imposed national security law, “raises serious questions about the state of fundamental freedoms, democracy and political pluralism in Hong Kong,” a European Union (EU) spokesperson has said.
In response, the Hong Kong government said it “vehemently objected” to the EU’s “misleading comments,” and “strongly urged the EU to immediately stop interfering in Hong Kong matters,” in a statement issued on Thursday night.
The city’s legislature unanimously passed the government’s proposal to drastically overhaul the District Council elections on Thursday.
Plans for the overhaul were unveiled in May to ensure only “patriots” could be elected, following a pro-democracy landslide in 2019. The number of democratically elected seats will be slashed to around 20 per cent, with the rest chosen by the city’s leader, government-appointed committees and officials.
Constituency boundaries will be redrawn and each local council will be chaired by a government official, similar to colonial-era arrangements. All candidates will undergo national security vetting to ensure patriotism.
The changes to the local-level advisory bodies went “against the commitment to democratic representation set out in the Hong Kong Basic Law,” a spokesperson for European Union External Action, the diplomatic service of the EU, said in a statement on Thursday.
The overhaul also further undermined the One Country, Two System principle of governance, the spokesperson said.
“The electoral overhaul of the District Council reduces drastically the number of directly elected members to less than one-fifth,” the statement read. “This severely weakens the ability of the people of Hong Kong to choose representatives overlooking district affairs. This decision follows the imposition of the National Security Law in 2020 and the overhaul of the elections’ rules for the Chief Executive and the Legislative Council in 2021,” it continued.
“These developments raise serious questions about the state of fundamental freedoms, democracy and political pluralism in Hong Kong that were supposed to remain protected until at least 2047 under the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984 and China’s international commitments.”
The EU also urged the Hong Kong and Chinese governments “to restore confidence in Hong Kong’s democratic processes, and to pursue the establishment of universal suffrage that is enshrined in the Basic Law.”
“China should abide by its international commitments and its legal obligations and to preserve Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms,” the statement read.
‘Stop interfering in Hong Kong matters’
The Hong Kong administration, however, said the EU had made “misleading comments” and “skewed remarks” towards the District Council overhaul and the city’s democratic development.
The government also urged EU to “stop interfering in Hong Kong matters,” and apologise for its statement.
“The HKSAR Government strongly urged the EU to immediately stop interfering in Hong Kong matters, which are purely China’s internal affairs, and to clarify and apologise for the fallacies in its statement,” the statement from the city’s administration read.
A government spokesperson also said that there was a “necessity and urgency” to overhaul the District Council.
Many district councillors “acted against” the functions of the District Councils, and “unscrupulously took actions that were not in line with the functions of [District Councils] as district advisory organisations, and even used [District Councils] as a platform to challenge our country’s sovereignty, advocate independence of Hong Kong and endanger national security,” the spokesperson said.
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