Hong Kong Proposes Restricting Prison Visits by Lawyers, Doctors for ‘National Security’ Reasons
Udumbara
Hong Kong officials submitted a proposal to the Legislative Council on July 3 to amend local prison rules, which would empower the Correctional Services Department (CSD) to impose—based also on “specific purposes” such as “maintaining national security”—restrictions, conditions, or prohibitions on visits to all inmates.
The authorities also sought to abolish other relevant provisions that allowed prisoners awaiting trial access to their own meals and clothing. Some commentators said the move is a sign that Hong Kong prisons are gradually becoming “mainlandized” and more like “concentration camps.” They also accused officials of proposing the amendment to target political prisoners.
The proposal states its goal is to “effectively prevent, stop, and punish acts and activities that endanger national security” and “maintain security, order, and discipline in prisons.”
The key points of the amendment include allowing the CSD to apply to the magistrate for a warrant in response to specific circumstances to impose restrictions on the contact between prisoners and individual legal representatives (including lawyers, barristers, or their clerks) or registered doctors, including anything that “will endanger national security or cause injury to anyone” and “will damage or hinder the administration of justice.”
Prisons Becoming ‘Mainlandized’
A web radio host known as “Giggs,” who was once imprisoned for crimes such as “incitement,” recently recalled in the web radio program “Jen Talk“ that, when he was imprisoned in 2021, he had foreseen that the situation in prison was getting worse and worse.“If you really have to go to jail, it’s better to go earlier. If you go later, the environment will be worse,” he said.
At that time, he believed that prisons were gradually moving toward being more like “concentration camps” and “mainland-like,” and now, this amendment will normalize it, he said.
He estimated that, after the amendment, in the future, if prisoners under the National Security Law want to see their family, relatives, friends, human rights organizations, religious figures, and lawyers, they may need to obtain approval from the CSD. He questioned how judicial rights would be balanced if prisoners could not see their own lawyers.
Hidden Political Motives
Former Yau Tsim Mong District Councilor Ben Lam Siu-pan, who used to visit imprisoned protesters regularly, told The Epoch Times that he suspected the amendment was aimed at political prisoners because defendants in National Security Law cases usually cannot successfully apply for bail, which means they will be remanded in custody for several years before being convicted.For example, defendants in the Democratic Party primary election case and the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China case can, in principle, access private meals for several years. But this will not be possible after the amendment. And defendants, even when they have not been convicted, will receive unfavorable treatment.
The amendment also proposed that the CSD be allowed to request the court to restrict inmates from contacting designated lawyers or barristers. Lam believes this represents a significant curtailment of inmates’ legal rights and freedoms, and suspects that the real aim is to prevent pro-democracy lawyers from acting as a conduit for jailed protesters to communicate with the outside world, thereby stopping their voices from being shared.
The ultimate goal, Lam says, is to achieve the social erasure of political prisoners, making the public gradually forget that political prisoners still exist in Hong Kong.
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