Hong Kong’s government has proposed a new law that threatens prison sentences for anyone found guilty of urging others not to vote or or to cast a blank or invalid ballot, in advance of controversial elections expected later this year.
Pro-Beijing ministers said that the changes were necessary to ban any public act that discouraged voting or encouraged protest votes, including distributing leaflets, wearing clothes with slogans or hanging banners or posters.
Erick Tsang, the secretary for constitutional and mainland affairs, said that the authorities had noticed that some people were attempting to organise and incite others not to vote or to cast blank ballot papers in an act aimed at sabotaging elections and harming public trust in the voting system.
“That’s why we need to regulate,” Tsang said. “It’s not because the government has no confidence in the voter turnout.”
Theresa Cheng, the secretary of justice, said that the public act clause included any action or gesture and the exhibition of clothes and banners, such as displaying a slogan outside the windows of one’s flat.
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The proposed new offences will be punishable by up to three years in prison and are almost certain to pass the city’s parliament, which now has little opposition.
The reforms come after Beijing overhauled the territory’s voting rules, severely limiting the number of Hong Kong lawmakers elected by popular votes in contrast to those directly appointed by pro-Chinese committees.
Under the new rules, all candidates must be vetted by police, and voters will return only 20 MPs to the 90-seat Legislative Council, while an election committee packed with pro-Beijing members elects 40 MPs. The remaining 30 seats will be chosen by functional constituencies, or mostly trade-based interest groups in the city.
Beijing says that the new rules will ensure that only “patriotic” candidates can run in elections for the Legislative Council scheduled for December 19, which have been delayed since September.
Critics have condemned the changes as further limiting Hong Kong’s democracy after the months of protests in 2019 that brought hundreds of thousands of people to the streets.
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Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, said that the changes undermined the “one country, two systems” policy China had agreed with Britain before the territory was handed over in 1997.
Speaking of the latest reforms, Johannes Chan, a law professor, told Ming Pao, a Hong Kong newspaper, that it was currently lawful for anyone not to vote or cast a protest vote.
“How come asking others to do lawful things should become illegal?” Chan said, adding that the new reforms also violated freedom of speech.