'A ‘Pyongyang-esque’ effort to empower Hong Kong’s chief executive', Benedict Rogers

The proposed legislation could be a final, loud nail in the coffin of promised freedoms and autonomy

It is not known how many nails were hammered in on the cross during the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, but it is commonly believed to be only a few — perhaps three. Yet over the past seven years, many more nails have been banged into the coffin of Hong Kong’s freedoms.

From the shocking police brutality against largely peaceful protesters in 2019, the imposition of the draconian National Security Law in 2020, the ensuing crackdown on political parties, civil society, trade unions, and media freedom, the imprisonment of almost 2,000 political prisoners, the expulsion of pro-democracy legislators from the Legislative Council, the imprisonment of pro-democracy politicians and activists for organising a primary election, and the banning of pro-democracy candidates from contesting all future elections, to the closure of the Apple Daily and jailing of its founder and proprietor Jimmy Lai, the banning of certain books, plays, films, songs, and artwork, the arrest of Hong Kongers for what they post or like on social media, or wear on their T-shirts, the criminalization of any commemorations of the Tiananmen Massacre, to the introduction of further national security legislation in the form of the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance in 2024, we have seen the rapid metamorphosis of Hong Kong from one of Asia’s freest and most open societies to one of its most repressive police states.

Every single one of the above-mentioned developments represents a nail in the coffin of Hong Kong’s freedoms.

Now, the coffin is very tightly nailed. It is hard to see what more nails could be needed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime to keep the lid on the people’s consciences, convictions and expression shut and protect its paranoid, fragile but iron-fisted rule.

Yet, the CCP — and its apparatchiks running Hong Kong — have found a new nail, designed to further seal the lid on Hong Kong’s freedoms.

This week — which marks the seventh anniversary of the 2019 pro-democracy protests — the Hong Kong government, which is now a complete Beijing puppet, with any pretence of remaining autonomy a farce — announced plans to introduce subsidiary legislation under Section 110 of the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, to empower Hong Kong’s Chief Executive to determine what crimes may constitute a national security offense.

The existing security laws already give the Chief Executive power to determine actions that violate national security. But the proposed new law would formalize this power, and enable the Chief Executive to rule on any criminal case and designate it a national security crime.

It would empower Hong Kong’s political leaders to decide that any given crime — not only the four currently within the purview of the security law apparatus, namely: secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion — is a breach of national security.

That would lead to that crime being judged under the national security law apparatus — without trial by jury, with specially selected judges, and with expanded investigative powers. What might otherwise be a standard criminal matter could be elevated to the category of national security offence on the whim of Hong Kong’s chief executive.

This proposal makes a mockery of what tiny vestiges might be left of the rule of law in Hong Kong.

It will undermine whatever may be left of the independence of the judiciary or any remaining concept of fair trial.

In effect, it is a broom to sweep the final crumbs and the last dust of the rule of law out of Hong Kong for good — and bang a final, loud nail in the coffin of Hong Kong’s promised freedoms and autonomy.

There may yet be more nails to come, as the people of Hong Kong have not surrendered in their hearts. But for now, this latest announcement insults the memory of those who courageously marched for freedom seven years ago and represents the final nail in the coffin of Hong Kong’s freedoms.

Perhaps to say “final nail” is optimistic — so many nails have been hammered in so rapidly, it seems hard to imagine any more, but maybe there will be more before the sun rises. But let us remember: it is always darkest before the dawn.

And if we take the analogy of nails further, then far from being depressing, they give us hope. For the nails hammered into the cross led to the resurrection — the story of salvation and the ultimate comeback.

So for Hong Kongers, and all people persecuted and repressed by China, of all faiths and none, let this be the message: the hammering in of nails does not mean the end. One day, the people of Hong Kong — and Tibet, and East Turkistan, and Southern Mongolia, and China itself — will come back and be free.

So, Police Constable John Lee and your Beijing henchmen: you table your new law. The world knows that your legislature is a farce. It is packed with clowns, who will vote as they are told. The so-called government you lead, and the legislature that will supposedly enact your laws, cannot and must not be taken seriously by the international community. It is “Pyongyang-esque.”

But while no one should trust Hong Kong’s current puppet institutions and its absurd legislature, the world still trusts the ordinary, intelligent, brave and credible Hong Kong people. And one day their voices and consciences — and those of people across China — will prevail.

Nails lead to resurrection, which is why — with the artists and dissidents of China — we keep fighting.

This article was published in UCA News on 11 June 2026.

Photo: Yue WU on Unsplash