The Macau government has announced that it wants to punish crimes against China’s national security committed abroad through a legislative revision that is under public consultation until October 5.
The current state security law, passed in 2009, made acts of treason, secession, sedition and subversion crimes. However, there have so far been no prosecutions under this law.
Still, Macau’s Secretary for Security argued in a press conference that the Chinese special administrative region faces “infiltration from outside forces,” without giving details. Wong Sio Chak gave, as an example, the visit of the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, to Taiwan earlier this month, and that led Beijing to economically punish the island.
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The revision proposes punishing secession crimes, even when they are not “violent acts or other serious offenses,” and extends the crime of subversion to “all organs of central political power.”
The new legislation may punish not only subversion, but also violation of state secrets, although the authorities admit that state secrets will not be defined in the law itself.
The authorities also intend to legalize the “investigation and obtaining of evidence through infiltration,” apply mandatory pre-trial detention to defendants, and force “suspected organizations or individuals” to provide data about their activities.
Wong Sio Chak also revealed that the revision could allow security forces to impose “the restriction of exit” from Macau for “a maximum of five days” on people under investigation, without the intervention of a judge. The Secretary for Security argued that Macau and Hong Kong “must be on a parallel level” in protecting China’s national security.
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Participation “in activities involving national security” was one of the justifications given by Macau’s electoral authorities for the exclusion of five lists and 21 candidates, 15 of them pro-democracy, from the AL elections in 2021.
The issue of China’s national security appears in the final report of a public consultation on Macau’s future trade union law, released in June, according to which the population supports limitations on the participation of unions in international organizations, to “prevent the possible intervention of foreign forces that could threaten the security of the state.
Also the new gambling law, approved in June, allows a concession to be annulled by the Chief Executive for “threatening national security.”
