TNAG-1731-FCO40-2444-Minutes-and-Hansards-of-the-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-1988 — Page 281

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MR SZETO (in Cantonese):

Sir, I think that the amendment,,

retified by

Mr. Martin Lee is a sens le one. I pay tribute to his indomitable/art will abstain from voting on the Bill.

Political censorship has all along been the focus

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of the most heated debate. To safeguard the freedom of speech, from the very beginning, I have been objecting to the idea of censoring films politically, and I have been

fighting for the deletion of the damaged good relations with other teritorie clause since it amounts to political censorship.

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Britain is a State Party to the International

15 Covenant on civil and political rights. The part of the

Covenant on freedom of speech is applicable to Hong Kong. If the provision under the Covenant is to be implemented, 18 then the clause I mentioned just now in the Bill, should 19 be deleted, but the Government still refuses to admit that

the aforesaid clause goes against the spirit of the International Covenant and rejected outright any requests for its deletion. The stubborn attitude of the Government is no different from that when the Public Order (Amendment) 24 Bill

Bill steamrolled through this Council. I fought hard

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and for deletion of the clause for long, to no avail, because

therefore, the Government was being so very stubborn, so I tried another approach. That was to import the part of the Covenant 28 on freedom of speech into the Bill, so as to counter-

balance, to a certain extent, the effect of political censorship 730 under the Bill. This is tantamount to a retrograde step.

It can also be described as a compromise for the sake of

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consensus without giving up on principles. At first, the Government still fought the compromise very hard, but within 34 this Council there has been greater and greater consensus, 35 under the pressure of which, the Government gave in at the 36 last minute. But the Government's giving in means no more