September 6, 2003	Saturday	Rajab 8, 1424

HONG KONG, Sept 5: Hong Kong’s government on Friday scrapped plans to introduce controversial security legislation which sparked massive protests and triggered the territory’s worst political crisis since the 1997 handover.

Chief executive Tung Chee-hwa said moves to revive the legislation later this month had been indefinitely postponed because there was still widespread concern over the law, which critics say threatens Hong Kong’s political, religious and media freedoms.

“In order to give people enough time to understand the law, we decided to postpone it,” Tung told reporters at a press conference to announce the dramatic policy climbdown.

The initial security bill, drawn up under Article 23 of Hong Kong’s post-1997 constitution, was shelved by Tung earlier this year after more than 500,000 people marched through the streets in protest here on July 1.

The march and subsequent large-scale demonstrations led to the resignation of the government’s two most unpopular ministers, Financial Secretary Antony Leung and Security chief Regina Ip.

Tung told reporters on Friday there was no timetable for re-introducing the bill and stressed no replacement legislation would be put forward without extensive public consultation.

He said the government had also decided to postpone the bill in order to help the recession-hit economy, which was battered by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak between March and June.

“We believe the community needs to focus on the economy which has had a hard time with SARS. We need to get the economy going again and the whole community needs to be focused on reviving the economy,” he said.

However, Tung reiterated that Hong Kong was constitutionally obligated to legislate Article 23, adding that the security bureau had set up a taskforce to conduct a further review of the bill.

Pressure had mounted on Tung’s administration to back down on the security bill after parties across the political spectrum expressed disquiet over the legislation.

Legislator Lee Chuk-yan, who spearheaded the massive July protests, said the announcement marked a “victory for the thousands of people who forced the government to make an about-turn.”—AFP