Hong Kong should ‘keep cool head’ amid US sanction threats, justice minister says

Paul Lam also addresses concerns over lengthy processing time for protest-related cases after student charged four years after arrest

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The US House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and the Congressional-Executive Commission on China have called for sanctions against Hong Kong. Photo: AFP

Published: 6:39pm, 20 Jul 2024Updated: 7:27pm, 20 Jul 2024

Hong Kong should always “keep a cool head” when facing the threat of Western sanctions, the city’s justice minister said on Saturday, adding it would be irresponsible to promise a cut-off point for the prosecution of 2019 protest-related cases.

Secretary for Justice Paul Lam Ting-kwok also said that local media had missed a key detail in their coverage about a student being remanded in custody four years after his initial arrest as he discussed calls for US sanctions.

Last week, the US House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and the Congressional-Executive Commission on China both urged top American officials to enforce existing acts to “hold individuals accountable for eroding Hong Kong’s rule of law and democracy, and abusing human rights”.

Their concerns included the passage of the city’s domestic national security law in March and the recent conviction of all but two of the 47 opposition figures in a landmark subversion case involving an unofficial “primary” election in 2020.

Lam was among more than 20 officials, prosecutors and judges named on the proposed sanction list.