Monday, 1 July, 2002, 09:40 GMT 10:40 UK

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"Hong Kong's government does not see the irony in prosecuting people for blocking the pavement, and then ripping it up itself "

Discouraging dissent

On Connaught Road on Sunday, workers were digging up a pavement to lay a flowerbed. Not to make the area more attractive, but to stop [practitioners] of the Falun Gong meditation movement staging demonstrations on the doorstep of offices used by mainland Chinese officials.

Sixteen Falun Gong [practitioners] are on trial, arrested for causing a public obstruction on this spot. Hong Kong's government doesn't see the irony in prosecuting people for blocking the pavement, and then ripping it up itself.

"The 16 practitioners should never have been brought to court to be tried," says Sharon Xu, a Falun Gong spokeswoman. "They were conducting a very peaceful sit-in petition, and were not any obstruction to anyone. I think this says that freedom of expression is slowly going away."

At Hong Kong's airport this week 100 Falun Gong practitioners coming from Asia and Europe to join local demonstrations were detained and then deported. Chinese dissidents have suffered the same fate.

Last week it was Harry Wu, an American-Chinese human rights activist. A clear message is being sent - if Beijing doesn't like you, you will find it hard to get into Hong Kong.

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But most lawyers would say you should not be put on trial simply for being an opponent of the government in the first place. But increasingly it appears to be happening.

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Worse to come?

Lawyers like Margaret Ng worry because the government is considering even tougher anti-subversion legislation.

"We understand the rule of law as a restraint of the government's power, as equality, as protection of individual rights," she says, "but C H Tung understands the rule of law to mean that the government will pass harsh laws to take away rights and make police officers exercise their maximum power to carry out policies of the government."

Five years on, many have serious concerns about civil liberties in Hong Kong.

They believe freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, the independence of the press, academia, and the prosecution system are being harmed.

These are the very liberties that have made Hong Kong one of Asia's richest cities. Without them it will be a poorer place.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/asia-pacific/newsid_2077000/2077589.stm