(Clearwisdom.net)
The government of Hong Kong's Special Administrative Region ignores the objection of most of its citizens and insists on implementing Article 23 into the National Security Bill. The purpose of the government can be achieved because the majority of the Legislative Council is in the government's hands. However, this will cost the government the loss of its honesty, the bankruptcy of its credibility, and the loss of the public's trust in them. There are even stronger complaints among people indicating that the governance of the government in the future will surely encounter unprecedented difficulties.
Starting from the year before last, Mr. Tung has been trying to win people's support with his speech of "Worry about citizens' worries and think about citizens' thinking." However after he took office as The Chief Executive for the second time, the first thing that he carried out is the legislation of Article 23 of the Basic Law that citizens don't want and are even unhappy to see.
After taking office last July, Mr. Tung said in his inaugural speech, "The most urgent thing now is to answer citizens' appeals and completely change the style of governance." However, the consultation process and the results of legislating Article 23 show that he totally ignored citizens' appeals.
On June 24, 2002, when Mr. Tung announced the appointed name list of a "question and responsibility system," he promised that, "In the next 5 years, we will ... become a government that understands more and attaches more importance to people's situations and will." After the consultation period for Article 23, the "Collection of Feedback during the consultation period for Article 23" that was printed by the Security Bureau showed that the most important thing that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government has done, is to purposefully twist the people's will and ignore their situations.
On October 10, 2002, Mr. Tung attended a question & answer meeting of the Legislative Council, at which he said, "The consultation just started and I would like to listen to everyone's opinion. With regard to a public opinion poll, recently I also read the polls in the newspapers..." However, since the start of the consultation period, two legal associations asked to have a white bill draft of the legislation, but the director of the Department of Justice refused to "reevaluate the situation." Many polls show that the majority of people oppose the legislation of the consultation document, but Mr. Tung completely forgot his promise that he would act according to the "public opinion poll."
The lies of Mrs. Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee are too many to count. The "Collection of Feedback Regarding Article 23" has intentionally excluded many proposals that are widely published and well known; yet she simply claimed that was because of some "unintentional mistake." She said she had carefully listened to the voices from citizens' hearts when in fact she paid no attention to what citizens thought. Faced with the fact that 60% of the proposals were opposing the legislation of Article 23, she announced that a majority of citizens support the legislation, etc.
A government that keeps telling lies will have to pay the price, which is that people will not believe anything they say in the future. Unfortunately, some honest high-ranking officials are also embroiled in the troubles of Mr. Tung and Mrs. Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee because they have gotten on a wrong bus that has lost all of its credibility.
(Article from the "Apple Daily")
Written on February 16, 2003
