SAR Govt Hits Back At 'fact-twisting' By UK Report

The government on Tuesday rejected a report from Britain, accusing it of making "fact-twisting remarks" and smearing the implementation of the National Security Law (NSL), and said British politicians should stop interfering in Hong Kong matters.

The report from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong of the United Kingdom criticised the implementation of the NSL and said civil rights and freedoms were under attack in the SAR.

"The HKSAR Government firmly opposes the relevant UK politicians' repeated malicious slander against the NSL in attempts of interfering in Hong Kong's law-based governance and undermining the rule of law of Hong Kong. The HKSAR Government also strongly disapproves of their ignorance of the fact that the implementation of the NSL has enabled the livelihood and economic activities of the Hong Kong community at large to resume as normal and the business environment to be restored," a government spokesman said in a statement.

The spokesman said the politicians' report was "full of fallacious remarks".

"Such attempts to undermine the stability and prosperity of Hong Kong only expose their own weakness and faulty arguments, and are doomed to fail," the spokesman said.

The spokesman said the judiciary was independent, and the SAR was underpinned by the rule of law.

He said the media in Hong Kong were free to monitor the HKSAR Government's work.

"Their freedom of commenting on and criticising government policies, which take place as a matter of routine, remains uninhibited as long as they are not in violation of the law," he said.