Now he says he would not even pass through the Hong Kong airport for fear of being arrested under the city’s new national security law.
That’s because the legislation, which went into effect on Tuesday night, it doesn’t just stifle freedoms at home. It also puts foreign citizens who criticize the Chinese government anywhere in the world at risk of imprisonment if they even step on the city, even if they are only in transit through the airport.
“It is really worrying and scary, not just for Hong Kong residents, but for anyone who cares about human rights in Hong Kong and human rights in China in general,” Badiucao said from his home in Melbourne, Australia.
For decades, first under British colonial rule and then after its surrender to China, Hong Kong has offered legal protection from the mainland Communist Party. Chinese dissidents, Western scholars and global non-governmental organizations used Hong Kong as a safe space to gather, organize and criticize Beijing, mostly without consequences.
Whether he can continue to fulfill that role is now in question.
“There are crimes covered by this law that relate exclusively to speech, and therefore there is a possibility that your speech outside the country will expose you to risks if you enter jurisdictions,” said Jeremy Daum, senior member of the Yale Paul. Tsai Center.
“Hong Kong used to be a safe space. It is no longer a safe space.”
Section 38
On Wednesday, Hong Kong’s top official, Chief Executive Carrie Lam, defended the new law, describing it as a “crucial step to end the chaos and violence that has occurred in recent months” in the city.
The law introduces four new crimes: secession, subversion, terrorist activities and collusion with a foreign country, which carry maximum penalties of life imprisonment.
It is mainly focused on stopping local dissent. However, section 38 has caught the attention of legal experts worldwide.
“This law shall apply to crimes under this law committed against the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region from outside the region by a person who is not a permanent resident of the region,” is the unofficial translation of section 38 by the agency. Xinhua State News Agency.
In short, even people who are not Chinese citizens and who live outside of Hong Kong may be affected by the new legislation.
But section 38 of Hong Kong’s national security law has no such exception. The act committed abroad should only be considered a crime in Hong Kong.
The law is not retroactive, which means that anything that is said or done before July 1, 2020 will not be taken into account. But for artists like Badiucao, who has no intention of stopping criticizing governments in their work, or exhibiting prior art that was political, the law could apply as soon as he sets foot inside Hong Kong, even though it is now Australian citizen.
Dissidents are also not the only people concerned, as western academics may be reconsidering their trip to Hong Kong. Maggie Lewis, an expert in Chinese contemporary law at Seton Hall University, said she would now consider risk differently each time she traveled around the city.
“If you are not thinking about what you did outside of Hong Kong before entering Hong Kong, I don’t think you are going through the thought process necessary to be careful,” he said.
Cooling effect
Hong Kong has long been home to events that could never take place in mainland China, including the annual commemoration of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
Now, under the new security law, experts fear such moves may increase, especially if staunch critics of the Communist Party feel they cannot return.
Zhou Fengsuo, a survivor of the Tiananmen Square massacre and president of Humanitarian China, previously attended the June 4 memorial in Hong Kong. He also participated in the Umbrella Revolution in 2014, when pro-democracy protesters took to the streets of the city for months.
Now he feels it is likely that it is no longer safe to return, despite being a US citizen, and he is concerned that in the future, the Tiananmen Square monument will no longer be viable.
Yale’s Daum said section 38 of the law was designed, in particular, to attack academics, NGOs and international dissidents who had previously used Hong Kong as a way to enter China.
“You can see throughout the law that the concern is that Hong Kong is being used as a beachhead to post a security risk on the mainland,” he said.
Zhou agreed: “I think most dissidents and artists, academics will be reluctant to go to Hong Kong, our fear justified by the national security law.”
Blurred red line
Many law experts and dissidents agree that it is unclear how concerned critics traveling through Hong Kong should be, or exactly how the Chinese government intends to use the law.
Like much of Beijing’s national security legislation, Hong Kong’s law is drafted broadly enough that it can be used as required by the leadership of the Communist Party.
Seton Hall’s Lewis said the Chinese government could quickly use it to arrest some big names, scare smaller players and quietly subdue them.
“It is another arrow in the Beijing quiver to arrest people that Beijing has determined is in violation of the law and that the law is broadly interpreted,” Lewis said.
Badiucao said the vague wording of the law was a deliberate move by the Chinese government.
“When you don’t know where the red line is … they can expand their power as they wish,” he said.
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