SCMP: Fuel to the flames (Excerpt)

Friday, June 15, 2001

Either he has failed to learn or there are reasons why he said what he did. The escalated attacks that Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa made against the Falun Gong at the Legislative Council yesterday were alarming and unnecessary.

[Tung's slanderous terms omitted]

But apart from invoking, again, the self-immolation of a woman and her daughter, whom mainland authorities claim were members of Falun Gong, in Tiananmen Square early this year, Mr Tung had nothing to add in terms of objective evidence to show that the [group] had any really evil characteristics.

Considering the sensitive nature of the subject, the Chief Executive could have repeated his previous stance, said as little new as possible and then changed the topic quickly to avoid the furore his remarks would inevitably kick up. However, the fact that he did not choose to do so is intriguing.

Certainly, he knew he would be asked about the Falun Gong. And there was even speculation that his political friends might have worked to make sure the question came from Chan Kam-lam, a friendly legislator from the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong, which has close ties with Beijing, instead of from someone more skeptical.

And when he was asked by Democratic Party legislator Albert Ho Chun-yan to consider retracting his allegedly defamatory remarks about the [group], Mr Tung not only refused to do so but added weight to his comments by saying that he had made them after serious consideration.

By now, Mr Tung's statements against what is seen by the outside world as at worst a semi-religious [group] will have traveled round the globe, raising doubts overseas once again about Hong Kong's willingness to protect freedoms of religion and assembly. That can only be extremely damaging to Hong Kong's image.

The sole consolation is that Mr Tung said he did not think it was time to legislate against the [group]. That, of course, should not come as a surprise. For the Falun Gong in Hong Kong has not done anything wrong. In fact, as a group that occasionally demonstrates in public, its behavior has been exemplary.

Does Mr Tung know something about the [group] that the public does not? If so, he should explain what it is. Otherwise, he might be well advised to keep mum to save Hong Kong from further bad publicity.

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