Background: [Dec.14.02] Estimates of close to 60,000 people paraded through Hong Kong to oppose Article 23, which if passed, would make even peaceful appeals illegal. Top Left: [Mar.02] Hong Kong Police strangles a 60-year-old woman who was peacefully meditating outside China's Liaison Office. The meditators gathered there to appeal to China to stop persecuting Falun Gong. (See timeline of events)

Overview

In 1997, Hong Kong was returned to China under the theory of "One Country, Two Systems". Following a handover from British rule, what was supposed to have been fifty years to fold Hong Kong back into China's rule seems to only have taken five. In such a short time, Hong Kong has seen its free and open democracy put to the test under Beijing's watchful eye. Already many Hong Kong labor groups and media organizations have begun to feel the pressure, but nowhere is this felt more strongly than in Hong Kong's handling of Falun Gong.

Over the past several years Hong Kong has continually leaned in Beijing's direction on the issue of Falun Gong. Although Falun Gong is legal in Hong Kong and protected under its "One Country, Two Systems" policy, it has seen increasing harassment by the government there. Overseas practitioners of Falun Gong have been banned from entering Hong Kong, beaten, arrested and deported, in a country where freedom of belief is protected under the constitution. As if this weren't enough cause for concern, recent efforts to pass an "Anti-Subversion Law" limiting political organizations or freedom of belief is most surely an effort of the government to curtail Falun Gong and bow to Beijing's wishes.

The future of Hong Kong’s system is unknown. One thing is for certain, its future certainly lies in the protection of democracy for its people, and its treatment of Falun Gong.