Hong Kong's new immigration bill could give authorities arbitrary control over people's movement

A new immigration bill which is being considered in Hong Kong on Wednesday could give authorities unlimited powers to prevent citizens and other residents from entering and leaving the semi-autonomous city.

According to the government, the bill wants to screen illegal immigrants and does not intend to affect movement rights. But analysts do not think so.

Lawyers believe that the bill could allow authorities to prevent anybody from entering or leaving Hong Kong without a court order. In addition, it fails to stop indefinite detention for refugees.

In 2020, Chinese authorities imposed a national security law onto the city. Currently, the law would face no resistance as most of the pro-democracy lawmakers resigned last year to protest the disqualification of their colleagues.

Many of the pro-democracy politicians and activists remain jailed in the city under the new security law or for other reasons. Many of them have been exiled. In response to this, many Western countries have eased immigration rules for inhabitants of the city and are offering political asylum to multiple activists.

Lawyers told Reuters that the immigration bill could give authorities the power to impose "exit bans", similar to what exists in mainland China. On multiple instances, China has denied that the bans are a form of indefinite detention.

Hong Kong authorities say that they are simply following the practice followed by the United States and many European countries whereby carriers are required to provide detailed information of their crew members s part of an international convention.

The European Union states that authorities may not use such information to deny entry to people on any grounds other than to prevent, detect, investigate and prosecute terrorist offences or serious crimes.

(With inputs from agencies)