What's false and what's true on China-related human rights matters
3. False: The legislation on safeguarding national security in Hong Kong will make it difficult for foreign businesses in Hong Kong to fulfill their responsibility to respect human rights under the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights of the UN.
True:
- The legislation only targets four types of offences, namely, secession, subversion, terrorist activities and collusion with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security. Clearly, these offences are not what law-abiding businesses and residents in Hong Kong would ever engage in. Law-abiding trans-national businesses all want to see a Hong Kong back to stability and order. The implementation of this Law will help them better fulfill their responsibility to respect human rights.
4. False: The Hong Kong police have gotten away with the excessive use of force (such as using chemicals against protesters, committing sexual harassment and assault on female protesters at police stations, and harassing medical workers).
True:
- During the turbulence over the amendment bill, the Hong Kong police dealt with hundreds of violent incidents in accordance with the law and police guidelines for months. Yet the radical protesters kept upgrading their equipment, from stones and iron bars to steel-ball slingshots, knife-attached umbrellas and dangerous chemicals. Even so, the police all along demonstrated the maximum level of calm, rationality, and restraint, and refrained from the first use of force.
They only used force correspondingly to stop violent attacks or other illegal acts threatening the life and safety of other people on site, which is totally in line with international practice. They acted in a restrained, civil and highly professional manner even when their own lives and safety were threatened by dangerous weapons and violent and illegal activities. In fact, not a single protester in Hong Kong had died because of the law enforcement activity of the police. Yet over 590 police officers had been injured on duty by the end of May.
- In sharp contrast to the restrained and professional performance of duty by the Hong Kong police, there are many reports about the US police killing people with violence and guns in the course of law enforcement. The year 2019 alone saw 1,004 such cases. By mid-June, at least 13 people had lost their lives in demonstrations over the death of George Floyd, in addition to hundreds of injuries and over 13.5 thousand arrests. For example, Linda Tirado, a 37-year-old freelance writer and journalist, has been left permanently blind in one eye after being shot with rubber bullets by the police during her coverage of protests in Minneapolis.
