The change would add new offenses, including a prohibition on external interference in Hong Kong, a prohibition on supporting external intelligence organizations, and a prohibition on electronic and computer activities without lawful authority that endangers national security, along with a prohibition on general sabotage activities, according to the Hong Kong Free Press.
Hui, who serves as the policy and advocacy coordinator at the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, said during the panel that the legislation would “target foreign organizations [and] their activities in Hong Kong,” which could be used against foreign Christian missionaries and Hong Kong Catholic Church communications with the Vatican.
“A lot of the small- to medium-scale church groups, the Catholic Church, and foreign missionaries would all be affected,” Hui said.
“We don’t know how they’re going to use this law to go against religious groups, but having this law passed and imposed in Hong Kong would be a great threat to religious groups in Hong Kong,” she added. “They are subject to legal prosecution. … The Catholic Church in Hong Kong … might have to stop their communication with the Vatican because it’s a foreign state.”
In such a scenario, Hui warned that the Catholic Church in Hong Kong could be forced to join the Catholic Patriotic Association, which the communist government established in 1957 to exert government control of Catholic churches in mainland China.
“We don’t know how they’re going to use this because it’s another vaguely written law, but … if they don’t like what you’re doing and they have targeted you, they have the law at their disposal to use that to threaten you and put you in jail,” Hui said.
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