"Digital News, Social Change & Globalization" Conference
Screening

Title Article 23
Language Cantonese with Chinese subtitles
Length 24 minutes
Producer/reporter Lee Tak-sing, Yung Chun-fai
Executiver producer Cheung Hak Chiu
Production Television Broadcasts Ltd.
First Showing As part of the "News Magazine" series on Jade channel, Television Broadcasts Ltd., September 30, 2002
Awards First prize of Chinese broadcast category, the Eighth Human Rights Press Awards (Hong Kong) (2003)
Synposis Five years after the handover of Hong Kong's sovereignty, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government finally got down to the drafting of legislation for article 23 enshrined in the basic law. The article deals with ultra sensitive national security issues including subversion, sedition and treason.

Officials had stressed their proposals were in line with similar laws in advanced countries. But local high risk groups were worried the SAR government would, through legislation, allow Mainland china's concepts of national security infiltrate Hong Kong, and erode the freedoms and rights currently enjoyed by the SAR.

Back in 1989, a million people marched in the streets of Hong Kong in the wake of the bloody Tian An Men crackdown. Many had donated money to the pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing. Should history repeat itself, would Hong Kong people face prosecution for subversion?

After half a million people marched in Hong Kong on 1st July this year, the biggest show of protest since the 1989 rally, the SAR government postponed indefinitely, the legislation of article 23.