A new police unit to enforce the new national security law in Hong Kong will operate in secret, the city’s secretary minister said as anxiety over the law’s secretive nature mounts.

Johannes Chan, a legal scholar at the University of Hong Kong, said details of the national security law customized for the city were yet to be revealed, and he worried that “the devil could be in the details.”

Chan’s worry is unlikely to be soothed by Secretary for Security John Lee as he said in a TV interview on Sunday that a new police unit will be set up to enforce the law and that the unit will operate in secret.

"Because it involves national security, you have to understand that people targeted [by this law] could be very smart. They may be specialists,” Lee said, adding that the offenders could disguise themselves as ordinary people and could be difficult to spot.

"Confidentiality is important. This is really needed,” he said.

Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng’s latest blog post on Sunday further escalated the level of anxiety as she warned that expectations of everything in the national security law to fit in with Hong Kong’s common law system would be “impracticable and unreasonable.”

The National People’s Congress last month approved the plan to enact a version of national security law tailormade for Hong Kong to prohibit acts and activities related to subversion, secession, terrorism and foreign interference in the city’s affairs.

Speaking on a local radio program on Sunday, Chan urged the authorities to reveal more details of the law rather than promoting the law with emotional propaganda.

“I have never heard of any country enacting a national security law without allowing its citizens to preview the draft,” the former HKU law dean said.

Chan added that one must consider realistically whether one’s action or activities would really subvert or separate the country, such as actual military action or a coup d'etat to overthrow the government.

He said, for example, the vigil to commemorate the Tiananmen Square crackdown has been held for three decades peacefully and “even if [organizers] chanted the slogan of ‘down with one-party rule’, it should not constitute an action of subversion or secession.”

Chan said the definition of foreign interference in Hong Kong affairs was also ambiguous. He said as an international city, people in Hong Kong have regular exchange with international organizations, political or not.

“What if one day the Vatican's relations with China worsened? Would the Vatican be considered interfering in Hong Kong church?” Chan asked.

Lee stressed that the Hong Kong national security law would be enforced according to the law and would not violate the Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution. He also said it would be bound by the common law system, contradicting Cheng’s official blog post.

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