Hong Kong human rights situation worst since handover to China

Rule of law, freedom of speech and trust in government all deteriorated in 2016

By Benjamin Haas in Hong Kong

Protesters raise pictures of Hong Kong’s chief executive Leung, Chun-ying, during a 1 January protest. 

Hong Kong’s human rights situation is at its worst since Britain handed the territory to China, Amnesty International said in a new report, after a string of incidents damaged the city’s reputation in the past year.
Rule of law, freedom of speech and trust in government all deteriorated in 2016, Amnesty said, in a strong rebuke of the former British colony.
The report highlighted the case of five Hong Kong booksellers who disappeared, only to reappear in the custody of Chinese police.
The five men specialised in titles critical of the ruling Communist party and at least one was abducted from Hong Kong.
An increase in attacks on journalists by police was also evidence of the worsening rights situation, the report said.
After the UK handed Hong Kong to China in 1997, the city maintained many freedoms nonexistent in mainland China, under a framework known as “one country, two systems”.
Freedom of speech and an independent, common law judiciary have made Hong Kong a base for many critical of the Chinese government.
“The human rights situation is deteriorating to the point where people worry about their personal safety,” said Mabel Au, Amnesty’s Hong Kong director.
“There is a lot of discontent in Hong Kong about many issues, but there is increased suppression against those who express their views.”
Hong Kong’s government has stopped responding to the group on some of the most critical issues, ignoring requests made on behalf of the abducted booksellers.
“Two years ago we had meetings with the government to discuss our concerns, and now there’s nothing,” Au said.
“They seem to really not care about civil society.”
Hong Kong’s independent judiciary was also under attack, Amnesty said, after Beijing interfered in a local court case against two pro-independence MPs.
The move was seen as highly controversial and sparked about 13,000 to take to the streets in a protest that ended in clashes with police.
In a separate and extremely rare protest, more than 2,000 members of the legal profession marched against Beijing’s meddling in the local legal system.
The Amnesty report also highlighted a deep mistrust of government officials, with many Hong Kong people feeling the authorities only cared about political advancement and were not working for local residents.
Those fears were largely confirmed in the wake of the disappearance of the booksellers, when the Hong Kong government did little publicly to advocate for its detained citizens.
The reports also expressed concern over Hong Kong’s top leader, Leung Chun-ying, suggesting Hong Kong should withdraw from the United Nations convention against torture.