Govt Urged To Address Rights Concerns With Action

A coalition of civil society groups says Hong Kong's leaders need to back their words with action, after the government accepted five out of six recommendations on the SAR submitted during a UN review of China's human rights record.

The administration told a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council last night that it accepted calls to uphold "One Country, Two Systems", to ensure Hongkongers' right to take part in government, and to guarantee freedom of speech, assembly and association.

The recommendations were initially made during a UN review of China’s human rights record in November last year. The acceptance was formally announced at a plenary meeting of the Human Rights Council on Friday evening.

Simon Henderson, spokesman for the Hong Kong UPR Coalition, welcomed the administration's decision to accept the recommendations, but urged it to act to ensure the same issues are not in the spotlight in the next review.

“The government needs to implement these recommendations locally here in Hong Kong,” he said. “[It needs to] work with civil society, work with the international community to ensure that come five years’ time, we are not repeating the same messages again and again.”

However, the recommendation from Indonesia for Hong Kong to consider ratifying the International Covenant on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers was not accepted.

Henderson said this was deeply disappointing, especially as the government has indicated the city will need 600,000 more migrant workers over the next 30 years to meet demand brought about by the SAR’s ageing population.

Beijing accepted more than 80 percent of the 346 recommendations it received, but rejected criticism of its mass detentions in Xinjiang.

Vice minister of Foreign Affairs, Le Yucheng, who headed the China delegation, said references to “so-called large-scale arbitrary detentions in Xinjiang” constituted interference into the country’s internal affairs.

He said thousands of terrorists acts had been orchestrated in Xinjiang due to the spread of religious extremism, and authorities had taken steps to prevent this.