Pro-democracy groups in Taiwan have urged the self-ruled island to enact legislation mirroring a United States law to support Hong Kong’s human rights and democracy.

The groups called for Taipei to create its own version of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act in the U.S., requiring Taiwan’s government to annually review human rights conditions in Hong Kong and assess the level of autonomy of its government.

The assessments would be submitted to Taiwan’s legislature and assist with forming actions to deal with Beijing’s abuses of the favorable terms that Taiwan had given to Hong Kong. Such a law should also include ways to enhance support for Hong Kong’s democratic movements, the groups said.

Taiwan needed to review the situation in Hong Kong as Beijing’s drastic measures were turning Hong Kong into something similar to mainland Chinese cities, said Sang Pu, who chairs the Taiwan Hong Kong Association, one of the groups which called for legislation.

Recent incidents, including the mass arrests of pro-democracy figures who participated in unofficial primaries, the detention of 12 Hongkongers in Shenzhen, as well as Beijing’s radical change to Hong Kong’s electoral system, all pointed to the destruction of the “one country, two systems” principle, Sang said during a press conference on Tuesday.

Sang is a political commentator who moved from Hong Kong to Taiwan last year over concerns about the national security law.

Other groups supporting legislation include the Economic Democracy Union and the Taiwan Association for Human Rights.

Taiwanese lawmaker Freddy Lim, speaking at Tuesday’s conference, said Taiwan should review the form of exchanges it conducted with Hong Kong and Macao in the wake of deteriorating human rights conditions in Hong Kong.

The island should also consider imposing sanctions against perpetrators of rights abuses, Lim said.

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