Tam Tak Chi, the Vice-Chairman of People Power, was arrested at home by national security agents last week. When meeting the media, Li Kwai Wah, the Senior Superintendent of the Department for Safeguarding National Security(DSNS), alleged that the DSNS had intended to probe into the case along the direction provided by Article 21 of the National Security Law – “inciting sucession”, but after consulting legal professionals, they arrested the person suspected of being involved in “delivering seditious words” according to Chapter 200 of the Crimes Ordinance.

On July 1 at the State Council press conference, Zhang Xiaoming, the Deputy Director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, pointed out with an example that rumoring “citizens battered to death on August 31” levelled at the police might constitute a crime. Be that as it may, according to Article 29 of the Hong Kong National Security Law -"provoking by unlawful means hatred among Hong Kong residents towards the Central People’s Government or the Government of the Region, which is likely to cause serious consequences", the crime does not come to existence unless “colluding with foreign or external forces” is proved.

Though the Hong Kong National Security Law references the clause in Article 10 of Chapter 200 of the Crimes Ordinance – “delivering seditious words”, the two, targeted at two different categories, should not be mixed up. Having been engaged in China and Hong Kong affairs for years, Zhang Xiaoming ought to understand and be familiar with Hong Kong’s legal system. There are only two possibilities for him to make such a remark: 1, he tried to supersede the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress to interpret the law; 2, he did not grasp the difference between the two after spending years in Hong Kong. Yet, regardless of the answer, the DSNS arrested Tam Tak Chi pursuant to Zhang’s erroneous saying.

In terms of what Li Kwai Wah said, obviously the DSNS did not have sufficient evidence to prove Tam violating the National Security Law, and even could not unequivocally point out which part of his remarks are a breach of the Law. They just cooked up a charge in the name of safeguarding national security, pioneering literary persecution in Hong Kong in an attempt to please their lords in Beijing.

“There is absolutely no such thing as love or hatred without any reason or cause.” After 7.21 and 8.31 last year, a demand made by the public for an independent inquiry into the large-scale and important incidents and police violence was loud and clear. However, police’s objection backed by the SAR government and the pro-establishment camp finally closed the door to reconciling the police with the people, resulting in the prevailing abhorrence of the police. After the door was shut, the police went so far as to characterize the evil doings of a bunch of white-shirted gangsters assaulting citizens on July 21 last year as grappling between two bunches of people “well-matched in strength” in a bid to tamper the history, replacing the truth with preposterous arguments.

DSNS arresting Tam for “delivering seditious words” was just to test the waters. To palliate the blunders it committed, what the SAR government can do is to keep on cracking down on dissenters, hoping for silencing everyone one day. When no one talks about the mistakes made by the government, the fabricated story will be the only edition of the history. When the time comes, the truth did not exist in the past, and will not dawn upon anyone in the future. George Orwell says in his novel 1984, “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” In the face of the SAR government proactively testing the waters, if Hong Kong people go for yielding, not only will they lose the right of speech they ever enjoyed in the past, but also the right of speech in the future, becoming “no stake in the society”, as Carrie Lam put it.

(Fan Hak, independent writer)

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