“We strongly disapprove of and condemn the extremely misleading opinion piece,” Tang wrote in a letter sent to the paper’s editors. “It is necessary to set the record straight.”
The piece opened with a question on whether keeping old copies of the now-defunct tabloid Apple Daily ran the risk of being caught possessing seditious publications, a long-existing offence that was brought into the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance with more serious penalties.
Wang said the new legislation expanded on the Beijing-decreed national security law imposed in 2020 and criminalised “vague behaviour” such as possession of information “directly or indirectly useful to an external force,” referring to a clause of the espionage offence.
Hong Kong’s leader says early prison release hard to get after Article 23 law
Hong Kong’s leader says early prison release hard to get after Article 23 law
Tang maintained in the letter that the two pieces of legislation targeted acts endangering national security “with precision”, while law-abiding residents and travellers would not unwittingly violate the ordinance.
The newly passed ordinance also specified that rights and freedoms enshrined in the Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution, were to be protected, he added.
The security chief also reiterated that a person only committed the possession of seditious publications offence if there was no reasonable excuse.
“Whether a publication has seditious intention has to be determined after all relevant circumstances are taken into consideration,” he said in the letter.
“It is not possible for a person who does not know that the publication concerned has a seditious intention to be convicted.
“We strongly urge The New York Times to ensure that reports concerning Hong Kong are fair and just, and stop making scaremongering remarks.”
Hong Kong leader vows to bolster intelligence gathering after Article 23 law
Hong Kong leader vows to bolster intelligence gathering after Article 23 law
In a separate statement, a government spokesman condemned the BBC’s Chinese-language website for “extremely misleading” coverage on activist Adam Ma Chun-man, who became the first inmate barred from early release under the new law.
A new provision in the prison rules states that an inmate convicted of national security offences will not be granted sentence remission unless the commissioner of correctional services is satisfied it will not compromise national security.
The BBC article described the early release provision as “statutory treatment”. The government said prisoners never had a guaranteed right to early release and remission had always been granted on a discretionary basis.
The spokesman accused the BBC of double standards because it did not mention in the story that a UK counterterrorism law imposed in 2020 also removed the possibility of early release for those who had committed a serious offence.
In Beijing, meanwhile, Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Chen Binhua hit out at the island’s Democratic Progressive Party administration. He said it had been attacking the new law because a prosperous Hong Kong would make Taiwan’s attempts to discredit the “one country, two systems” governing principle untenable.
Taiwanese transport minister Wang Kwo-tsai had caused a stir in the island’s tourism sector after advising local people against visiting Hong Kong after the legislation was enacted.
The government has been pushing back at news stories and opinion pieces critical of the new law by foreign media outlets such as The Times, The Washington Post and Bloomberg.
Tang has even called himself the “rebuttal team leader”.
He earlier also singled out local newspaper Ming Pao for a “misleading” subheading on a story about the new law.
