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Bar association chief denies saying Hong Kong’s national security law is ‘legal and necessary’

蘋果日報 2021/05/01 06:47


The head of Hong Kong’s Bar Association has denied telling a newspaper reporter that the city’s draconian national security law, imposed by Beijing last June, is “legal and necessary.”
Paul Harris said the pro-establishment newspaper Sing Tao Daily misquoted him in its account of a recent interview he gave. The Chinese-language interview surprised some in the pro-Beijing camp, who accused Harris of “pretending” to backtrack from his earlier, more critical remarks against the security law.
Harris told the online news portal Hong Kong Free Press on Thursday that he never said enacting the national security law was “legal and necessary.” Instead, he said that “having a national security law was legitimate and sometimes necessary.”
Harris, a British-born human-rights barrister, has called for modifications to the national security laws to better protect civil liberties in the city. He has also raised concerns over the jailing of media tycoon Jimmy Lai along with several other democracy activists over a banned pro-democracy demonstration in August 2019.
Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong has described Harris as an “anti-China politician”. There have also been calls for Harris’s removal as the association’s chairman, a position he assumed in January.
Harris told Sing Tao Daily that he was “neither a politician nor anti-China.”
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