Paul Tse dismisses fear over retroactive security law

Pro-Beijing lawmaker Paul Tse on Friday dismissed concerns about the retroactive effect of the national security law, saying the police may need to look back at actions that occurred prior to the law being introduced in order to establish patterns or intentions.

Police said on Thursday that the arrests of five of Apple Daily’s executives were linked to articles in the newspaper – some dating back to 2019 – that allegedly called for foreign sanctions.

The national security law only took effect on June 30, 2020.

Tse, who’s also a solicitor, said officers could be relying on those articles to prove there had been an intention to call for sanctions on Hong Kong and mainland officials.

He said officers might need to investigate a period of time prior to the alleged offence in order to see if there’s a “consistent pattern”, to see if an action after the introduction of the national security law was “not a one-off”.

The lawmaker added that media workers should use their common sense to distinguish between what he called genuine reporting work and articles written with an agenda to violate the security law.