Sign Campaign Shows Wide Support For The New Law: CE

Chief Executive Carrie Lam on Tuesday called on the opposition camp not to "demonise" the national security law, saying if they do so, they'd essentially be pitting themselves against the people of Hong Kong.

Given that around three million people have signed up in support of the legislation, it clearly shows that there is widespread backing for it in Hong Kong, said Lam.

A pro-Beijing alliance earlier this month had said it collected over 2.92 million signatures in support of Beijing’s move to bring in a national security law for Hong Kong.

Speaking ahead of her weekly Executive Council meeting, Lam said: "There is wide support from this community. There’s an organisation that collected 3 million signatures in ten days, I and my principal officials also went to a street station to give our signatures to show our support for this task."

She also rejected concerns that the local judicial system will be undermined when the new law is imposed.

The deputy head of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office had said that Beijing might exercise jurisdiction in some rare cases under the new law.

Lam reiterated that there will be basic principles laid down to protect One Country, Two Systems

"This new piece of legislation will not change Hong Kong's high degree of autonomy, and will not affect judicial independence, including that of final adjudication," she said.

The CE also rejected criticisms that the government has violated provisions related to protections against anti union discrimination ahead of a "referendum" for a strike against the national security law.

The government issued a statement last week saying they "strongly condemned" calls for civil servants to take part in the "referendum", and warned that those who violate the Civil Service Code will be investigated.

"There is no such thing as a referendum in Hong Kong or in our political process," said Lam.

She went on to say: "I think one has to look at the purpose of the strike; if the purpose of a strike has nothing to do whatsoever to the workplace, with the being members of the union in voicing their concerns against the employer, and so on, and so on, then it would not be covered by that sort of constitutional protection."

On Monday evening, the Union for New Civil Servants – one of the around 30 unions are planning to organise a joint "referendum" on Saturday – accused the government of trying to silence civil servants who would like to express their views and warned of taking legal action against the government’s potential discrimination against trade unions.