Thousands of people took to the streets of Hong Kong at the weekend in protest at proposed changes to the city's extradition laws that could see people sent to mainland China to face prosecution, even in the absence of an extradition agreement, on a case-by-case basis.
An estimated 12,000 people turned out to march to government headquarters on Sunday, according to march organizers, as rights groups called on the Hong Kong government to scrap the proposals.
Marchers carried placards that read "No to extradition to mainland China," and shouted "There is no good reason to amend the extradition law!" and "Oppose Hong Kong turning into mainland China and extradition to black jails!"
Jimmy Sham of march organizers the Civil Human Rights Front called on the government to drop the amendment, which is due to be tabled in the city's Legislative Council (LegCo) on Wednesday.
"We can see that the government can only force this legislation through LegCo," Sham said. "They have also muddied the waters by taking commercial crimes off the table, and deflecting public anger onto the business community."
Critics say China -- the most likely jurisdiction to use the proposed system -- lacks any judicial independence, paving the way for human rights abuses involving suspects beyond China's borders.
The World Justice Project in 2017/18 ranked China’s justice system 75th out of 113 countries, while Hong Kong came 16th.
Canadian arrests cited
A student social worker surnamed Chow who attended the march said that there was no way to guarantee the rights of suspects rendered to mainland China under the proposals.
"The [government's] explanation is not convincing, because even if some commercial and political crimes are ruled out ... because it fails to ensure a fair trial once someone ... is sent to mainland China," Chow said.
Currently, suspects must be wanted for a crime that is an offense both in Hong Kong and another jurisdiction with which it has an extradition treaty, and requests are limited to a list of 46 serious crimes including murder, assault and sex offenses.
But under the proposed changes, citizens of the democratic island of Taiwan and other countries traveling through Hong Kong could also be placed in jeopardy, should Beijing decide that it wanted to accuse them of a crime.
Democratic politicians have pointed to the arrests of several Canadian nationals on Chinese territory since the arrest of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver on Dec. 1, 2018, and to the 2015 cross-border detentions of five booksellers -- including a Swedish and a U.K. national -- wanted for selling books banned in mainland China to customers there, despite the fact that their actions were entirely legal in Hong Kong.
One of the five booksellers, Lam Wing-kei, told RFA that he plans to leave Hong Kong if the amendments make it into law.
"There are charges against me in mainland China, which are 'illegally selling books,' that haven't been dropped," said Lam, who departed from the confessional script agreed with Chinese police prior to his conditional release, and held a press conference about his ordeal on arriving back in Hong Kong.
"It's very clear to me that if this law passes, then there is a basis on which to extradite me," he said. "I don't trust the Hong Kong government to guarantee my personal safety, nor that of any other Hong Kong resident, in the event that this law passes."
Arbitrary detention, torture, and ill-treatment
Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam on Monday dismissed concerns that the new legislation being tabled in the city's Legislative Council on Wednesday will enable Beijing to pick and choose suspects, saying that the bill will include "a range of human rights and procedural safeguards in the system."
The government has already dropped a slew of white collar crimes from the legislation following concerns from the business sector that retaliatory charges could be brought as strong-arm tactics in business disputes.
Hong Kong officials say that only high-level Chinese authorities, such as the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Justice, would be able to make an extradition request to Hong Kong.
But rights groups warned on Monday that the proposed amendments will effectively result in the removal of safeguards.
"The guarantees are actually unlikely to provide real protection," a March 31 letter posted to Twitter by London-based rights group Amnesty International and co-signed by the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor said.
HRW China director Sophie Richardson said the proposed changes should be scrapped.
"The proposed changes to Hong Kong’s extradition laws would permit transfers to mainland China, putting Hong Kong people at risk of torture and unfair trials," Richardson said in a statement on the group's website. "The amendments would tarnish Hong Kong’s reputation for the rule of law, and should be scrapped."
China's justice system has a record of arbitrary detention, torture, and other ill-treatment, of serious violations of fair trial rights, and of various systems of incommunicado detention without trial, HRW said.
"These amendments would heighten the risk for human rights activists and others critical of China being extradited to the mainland for trial on fabricated charges," Richardson said. "This is a devastating blow to the freedoms promised Hong Kong upon its handover to Chinese sovereignty in 1997."
Reported by Lau Siu-fung for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by the Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.