District Councillors Demand Security Law Withdrawal

Pro-democracy members who control 17 district councils across Hong Kong have unanimously voted in favour of a motion calling for the withdrawal of the upcoming national security legislation.

They said the proposed new law will destroy the One Country, Two Systems principle and push Hong Kong towards a “an abyss of perdition”.

“We have the mandate to voice out what we believe and what the Hong Kong People are afraid of,” said Wan Chai district councillor Clarisse Yeung, speaking after a slightly chaotic meeting.

She said the new security law will have a chilling effect on the city and rejected claims by pro-Beijing groups that they have collected millions of signatures in support of the new law, saying “we don’t where they got it from”.

After somewhat haphazard discussions of the security law by different district councils, they were asked to vote for a resolution against the Beijing move.

The councillors also raised slogans like “Liberate HK, Revolution of our times” and “withdraw the national security laws” in between.

Some district councillors then asked for another motion to be voted on, calling for a cross-district platform to be set up to "reflect true views of the people".

But this led to arguments about meeting rules and finally those in chair pointed out the motion has to be proposed and seconded before a discussion.

After another brief discussion, 10 district councils voted in support of the motion, while the rest said they will hold discussions about this before vote.

The opposition camp secured control of all but one district council after pro-government candidates were swept out of office in the district polls last November that came after months-long protests against the government.

The newly elected councils have often been at logger heads with the government officials over various issues.

The government has earlier refused to recognise the legitimacy of the Saturday meeting, saying that the issue of national security law doesn’t fall within the scope of the councils and has nothing to do with district work.

In a statement issued on Friday, the Home Affairs Department said it will not send representatives to the meeting, nor provide any secretariat support as the meeting is not legally effective.