Calls for quicker action against absconders
Several lawmakers on Monday called on the authorities to remove or shorten a waiting period before restrictions are placed on national security suspects who are believed to have fled Hong Kong. Under proposed national security legislation under Article 23 of the Basic Law, the restrictions – such as cancelling the absconder's passport – would come into effect six months after an arrest warrant is issued. At a Legco bills committee meeting, lawmakers said the period is too long, with DAB chairman Gary Chan saying that endangering national security is "something worse than murder and arson". The Secretary for Security, Chris Tang, said officials will review the matter carefully, but he also noted that the legislative intent for the six-month period is to allow the suspects to surrender to the authorities. "We want to give the opportunity for the persons to turn themselves in, before waiting for money to be cut off and having their professional qualifications stripped. The best is for the person to come back," he said. The bill also proposes that anyone found to have provided money, financial assets or economic resources to a suspect who fled Hong Kong would face a maximum penalty of seven years in jail, and it's also a crime to lease a flat to and from an absconder. DAB lawmaker Kennedy Wong asked whether it'd be a crime for people overseas to pay tuition fees for the suspect or offer him or her a job. Tang said the legislative intent is to penalise those in Hong Kong who give financial assistance to the absconder, so this provision wouldn't have an extraterritorial effect. The Department of Justice added that parents would be liable if they withdraw money in Hong Kong, fly to where their absconded child is and give him or her the money there, because the withdrawal was made in the SAR.