Month: September 2019

Hong Kong, China, Sep 4, 2019 / 03:49 pm (CNA).- Despite Hong Kong’s chief executive announcing that she will withdraw a controversial extradition bill, protests are continuing, with demonstrators demanding additional government and police reforms, said the leader of local Catholic student group.

“I don’t think that they will [be] satisfied with the withdrawal of the bill…people are too angry at the government and the police,” said Edwin Chow, acting president of the Hong Kong Federation of Catholic Students.

Chow told CNA that demonstrators are angry not only about the bill, but also about police brutality shown in recent months and what they describe as unjust limits on democracy.

“So they will keep protesting, of course. And what has happened the last weekend is that on the 31st of August, actually we had a large protest, which originally the government did not allow, but we still [went] on the street, protesting. And the police used tear gas, and they used water cannons on the people,” he said.

Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam announced Wednesday via a video message that she is officially withdrawing a bill that, if passed into law, would have allowed extraditions of alleged criminals to mainland China.

The controversial bill sparked widespread protests on the island territory, beginning in earnest with a demonstration June 6 that saw an estimated 1 million Hong Kongers take to the streets. Many more large protests have taken place since, with police occasionally resorting to forceful tactics such as tear gas and water cannons.

Lam had suspended, but not fully withdrawn, the bill on June 15 after first introducing it in February. The process of withdrawal will officially start in October when the territory’s legislature next meets.

Hong Kong— a “special administrative region” of China, meaning it has its own government but remains under Chinese control— has total freedom of worship and evangelization, while in mainland China, by contrast, there is a long history of persecution for Christians who run afoul of the government.

Many Christians feared that the bill would provide a means for the mainland Chinese government to tighten its grip on the free exercise of religion in Hong Kong, as well as a means to persecute those in Hong Kong who support persecuted Christians on the mainland.

The island is only about 8% Catholic, but that represents a population of over half a million.

Protesters have articulated five demands for the government of Hong Kong, one of which was the withdrawal of the bill.

The other demands include Lam’s resignation; an independent inquiry into police brutality; the release of arrested protesters, who number nearly 1,200 in total; and an expansion of democratic freedoms, including universal suffrage. Under the current system, the territory’s chief executive is not elected directly by the people of Hong Kong, but rather a 1,200 member election committee.

“I think if we have true universal suffrage, maybe the chief executive…will really listen to people, because she’s elected by the people,” Chow said.

“The people [should] have the power to impeach him or her. The chief executive should be responsible to the people. But now…because now the government is selected by Beijing, they only can be loyal to Beijing, but not Hong Kong people. So this is why I think the people will keep protesting.”

Chow said beginning on Sept. 2, many university students boycotted their classes. He said the plan originally was to boycott for nearly two weeks, until Sept. 13. The boycott was “not well-planned,” he acknowledged, and right now it is “not very obvious that we are having a strike,” but student groups are planning to hold assemblies and meetings during the class boycott.

Chow said there is another large protest planned for this coming weekend, this time at the airport, where a large group of protesters gathered last weekend. He said many people have been arrested at subway stations.

He said he does not know of any members of the Catholic student groups that have been arrested or injured in the protests.

The auxiliary bishop of Hong Kong, who has been a vocal supporter of the protests, told CNA last week that he hopes prayer will help transform the area into “a channel of God’s peace.”

Many Catholic clergy in Hong Kong, including apostolic administrator Cardinal John Tong and bishop emeritus Cardinal Joseph Zen, have expressed support for the protesters.

“We’re urging fellow parishioners to join our ‘Friday fasting’ movement,” Bishop Joseph Ha Chi-shing told CNA on Aug. 30.

“It’s been a tradition for us to fast on Fridays. However, this tradition somehow was abolished. With fasting and prayers, we hope that we can help ourselves to strengthen our mind and soul to fight evil thoughts. Then, we would be in a better position to help fellow Hongkongers.”

Bishop Ha, who has taken part in ecumenical prayer rallies with protesters in the past, urged an increase in prayer and said he is concerned for the safety of the many young people involved in the protests.

“I do worry about the safety of the protesters, especially the young ones,” he said. “Youth is not just our future, they are also our present as Pope Francis said. Feeling sad, helpless and sometimes even furious is not unusual. However, we must prevent sadness developing into hopelessness, prevent anger turning into hatred.”

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Canberra, Australia, Sep 4, 2019 / 02:01 pm (CNA).- The president of the Law Council of Australia signalled dissatisfaction with the government’s religious discrimination bill Wednesday. Among his concerns are its ability to bolster conscience protections for medical professionals who object to participating in abortion.

Arthur Moses, head of the association of law societies and bar associations in Australia, addressed the bill in a Sept. 4 address to the National Press Club in Canberra.

According to Guardian Australia, much of his criticism focused on the suggestion the bill could protect expressions of racial discrimination.

The religious discrimination bill would make it unlawful to discriminate against people on the ground of their religious belief or activity; establish a religious freedom commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission; and amend existing laws regarding religious freedom, including marriage and charities law, and objects clauses in anti-discrimination law.

It would protect religious speech under commonwealth, state, and territory law.

The coalition government wants to make religious belief and activity a protected class, like race or sex. It also hopes to ensure that groups rejecting same-sex marriage are not stripped of their charitable status.

In its current version, the bill would not protect religious statements that are “malicious, would harass, vilify or incite hatred or violence against a person or group or which advocate for the commission of a serious criminal offence”.

The draft bill was released last week for public consultation by attorney-general Christian Porter.

Moses, in his prepared remarks to the National Press Club, said the Law Council welcomed the bill’s release “not because we necessarily agree with the government’s approach or with every provision. But because this provides an opportunity for a discussion that is long overdue about what type of nation we want to be.”

“An inclusive, tolerant and harmonious nation? A nation where people are vilified because of their sexuality in the name of religion? We need to get the balance right to ensure that there are no unintended consequences,” he stated, adding that “reasonable minds may differ about how we balance competing rights.”

He urged that “as a starting point, we need to have a clear definition of what we understand freedom and liberty to mean.”

Guardian Australia reported that Moses said the bill “doesn’t carry the same type of protection as section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act”.

Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 makes unlawful offensive behaviour done publicly because of race, colour or national or ethnic origin if the act “is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people.”

Moses said that “the concept of offend and insult in section 18C is not to be found in this legislation – so the test is much more difficult to establish in relation to provisions of the religious freedom bill than what is currently contained in the Racial Discrimination Act.”

He maintained that “this is an area where we have said you need to be very careful because some comments that are made do have an impact on the most vulnerable members of our community.”

Moses also said the religious discrimination bill would allow employers to prohibit religious speech if they would suffer “unjustifiable financial hardship”.

He called this “an interesting concept … there is a mirage of freedom of speech but it’s confined by the employer’s bottom line. I think that’s silly, with all due respect.”

Australia’s coalition government is led by the Liberal Party, which is joined by the National Party. The opposition Australian Labor Party is expected to back the bill.

LGBT advocates are opposed to the bill, as it could override some provisions of Tasmanian law.

Some conservative members of parliament have asked instead for a religious freedom bill.

Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, of the Liberal Party, voiced concerns July 9 that the bill does not go far enough, saying it “would be defensive in nature and limited to protecting against acts and practices by others which are discriminatory on the grounds of religion.”

She said that “quiet Australians now expect the Coalition to legislate to protect their religious freedom.”

The religious discrimination bill is being introduced to implement a commitment made in the 2019 federal election.

A review of religious freedom in Australia was finished in May 2018, making 20 recommendations; among these was a Religious Discrimination Bill.

The government has asked the Australian Law Reform Commission to report on how to balance competing claims of religious freedom rights and LGBT rights.

Australia has seen debate over religious freedom in recent years with respect to the seal of the confessional, hiring decisions, and same-sex marriage.

When same-sex marriage was legalized in Australia in 2017, efforts to include amendments that would protect religious freedom failed during parliamentary debate.

Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney noted last year that “we cannot take the freedom to hold and practice our beliefs for granted, even here in Australia,” and that “powerful interests now seek to marginalize religious believers and beliefs, especially Christian ones, and exclude them from public life. They would end funding to faith-based schools, hospitals and welfare agencies, strip us of charitable status and protections.”

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