Hong Kong (AFP) - Hong Kong on Friday rejected "unfounded and ridiculous allegations" after the UK government said China's national security law had "devastated" civil society, stifled political opposition and criminalised dissent.
The city's government hit out at the wide-ranging claims of internal repression made by the UK in its latest six-monthly report on its former colony, released late Thursday.
"The HKSAR (Hong Kong Special Administrative Region) Government urges foreign countries to stop interfering into the internal affairs of China through Hong Kong affairs," a spokesman said.
"We strongly oppose the unfounded and ridiculous allegations against the HKSAR Government made by foreign countries through various reports," he added, after similar criticisms from the US State Department.
The UK report covered developments in the territory in the second half of last year.
In the foreword, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said the security law imposed by Beijing in 2020 breached the terms of Hong Kong's 1997 handover to China.
"In less than two years...(it) has seen opposition stifled and dissent criminalised.Alternative voices in Hong Kong's executive, legislature, civil society and media have been all but extinguished," she wrote.
"The National Security Law has devastated Hong Kong's civil society, as individuals and groups have been forced to disband or self-censor, fearing arrest and imprisonment."
The latest war of words follows five retired British judges announcing they will still sit at Hong Kong's top court, despite two other senior British justices resigning Wednesday from their roles.
The five judges, as well as four others from Australia and Canada, will remain on Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal because its work is "more than ever important", they argued.
In contrast, the pair of judges who resigned said it was "impossible" for them to keep serving as it risked "legitimising oppression".
Unlike the opaque, Communist-controlled legal regime in China's mainland, Hong Kong was allowed to maintain a British-derived common law system, underpinning its appeal as an international business hub.
Under its mini-constitution, known as the Basic Law, senior judges from common law jurisdictions are invited by the territory to sit as non-permanent members on its top court.
Before this week's developments, eight of the current 12 were British, including the two serving members of the UK Supreme Court.
Their resignations were welcomed by the UK government, which said the arrangement had become untenable.
Beijing was now "assuming almost complete control of Hong Kong's law-making process", Truss said in the six-monthly report.
"The judiciary is now being required to enforce Beijing's laws and the values they contain."
London has also angered Beijing by offering Hong Kongers with handover-era passports a route to citizenship.
