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Hong
Kong civic groups will march in support of Edward Snowden, the former
National Security Agency contractor who disclosed a U.S.
Hong Kong Groups Plan Protest to Support Edward Snowden
By Simon Lee -
Jun 12, 2013 9:03 PM PT
At least 14 groups, including the Civil Human Rights Front and the League of Social Democrats, will demonstrate June 15 at the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong and the city government headquarters.
A TV screen shows the news of
Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor, at a
restaurant in Hong Kong. Photographer: Kin Cheung/AP Photo
Snowden fled to Hong Kong and identified himself as the source of reports in the Guardian and the Washington Post about a National Security Agency program to collect domestic telephone and international Internet data. Hong Kong will deal with any extradition request based on its own legal system, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying said in a Bloomberg Television interview in New York. He declined to comment on specific cases.
The protesters will call on the Hong Kong government to “respect international legal standards” and condemn the U.S. government for violating rights and privacy, according to a statement on the organizers’ website.
In an interview with the South China Morning Post published today, Snowden said the U.S. had been hacking computers in Hong Kong and mainland China since 2009.
Snowden’s disclosures about U.S. surveillance activities in Hong Kong may violate the city’s secrets law, according to Simon Young, a law professor at the University of Hong Kong. Information related to security or intelligence communicated by the Chinese or Hong Kong governments is protected by law, Young wrote in a note to the media today.
Surveillance Activities
“It might be possible that any surveillance activities that took place in Hong Kong arose as a result of information provided confidentially by the Chinese or Hong Kong governments,” Young said in a media advisory. It’s an offense to make such a “damaging disclosure,” Young said.Snowden’s revelations weakened the U.S. and European governments’ “moral force” in calling for Internet freedom in China, Hong Kong-based Chinese-language newspaper Apple Daily wrote in an editorial.
In its own editorial, the South China Morning Post said it was debatable whether the U.S. surveillance programs are “more defensible than China’s state-sponsored hacking activities.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Simon Lee in Hong Kong at slee936@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Rosalind Mathieson at rmathieson3@bloomberg.net
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