Secretary for Justice Paul Lam Ting-kwok
Hong Kong’s justice minister made a warning on Monday that criticising the city's new national security law by posting and sharing could breach the legislation and severe penalties are stipulated for sedition.
Hong Kong Secretary for Justice Paul Lam Ting-kwok said in an interview on Sunday that a person might have carried out an offence if any online critical statements issued by foreign countries and persons overseas, depending on their “intention and purpose” are reposted by them.
“An extreme scenario could be that the person posted [the statements] online because they strongly agreed with it, and they added some comments, made additional remarks, purely for the purpose of inciting other residents’ hatred against the [Hong Kong] and central governments,” Justice said.
“In that case of course there is a risk and a chance [of breaching the law].”
The Article 23 legislation, which came into force on Saturday, includes penalties of up to life imprisonment for five categories of crime including treason, insurrection, espionage, sabotage and external interference.
It also expands the British colonial-era offence of “sedition” to include inciting hatred against China’s Communist party leadership.
In the same interview, Hong Kong security chief Chris Tang said that additional evidence such as “what you keep at home and what other acts you have done” would have to be collected to facilitate prosecution.
“As I often said, if you breached the law, I will definitely find evidence against you,” he added.
香港官員警告說，網路上發文和分享的批評可能違反新的國家安全法
香港司法部長週一發出警告，透過發文和分享批評香港新的國家安全法可能違反立法，煽動叛亂行為將受到嚴厲處罰。
香港律政司司長林保羅週日接受採訪時表示，如果外國國家和海外人士在網路上發表的任何批評言論被轉發，則可能構成犯罪，這取決於他們的「意圖和目的」。
「一種極端的情況可能是，這個人因為非常同意，就在網路上發了一些言論，補充了一些言論，純粹是為了煽動其他居民對香港和中央的仇恨。」政府，」正義說。
“在這種情況下，當然存在[違法]的風險和機會。”
週六生效的第 23 條立法規定，對叛國罪、叛亂罪、間諜罪、破壞罪和外部干涉罪等五類犯罪行為最高可處以終身監禁。
它也擴大了英國殖民時代的「煽動叛亂」罪名，包括煽動對中國共產黨領導層的仇恨。
在同一次採訪中，香港保安局局長鄧克里斯表示，必須收集更多證據，例如“你在家中存放的東西以及你所做的其他行為”，以便於起訴。
「正如我常說的，如果你違法了，我一定會找到對你不利的證據，」他補充道。
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