The Hong Kong Extradition Treaty No One Talks About

Here is a crucial fact which has escaped the notice, or been suppressed, in all of the media coverage and discussions regarding the current round of Hong Kong mass demonstrations.

Hong Kong currently has no extradition agreement with mainland China, and the proposal to create one was the initial trigger for the mass demonstrations. But Hong Kong has had an extradition agreement with the U.S. since December 20 1996! [adopted less than seven months prior to the Handover, or Return of Hong Kong to China, on 1 July 1997].

The proposed extradition treaty with the mainland was considered as a threat to the human rights of Hong kong people. But the U.S. extradition agreement, which is a “proven” threat to the human rights of Hong Kong people, has been passed over in silence.

When the courageous whistleblower Edward Snowden arrived in Hong Kong in 2013 with vital information related to Hong Kong peoples’ human rights, the U.S.-Hong Kong extradition agreement was immediately invoked by the U.S. in an attempt to ‘shut him up’.

What he provided to Hong Kong were documents from the U.S. National security agency showing its massive illegal pilfering of Hong Kong peoples online activities, including the covert “physical” intersection of the undersea cable which brings internet traffic into Hong Kong.

The U.S. governments immediate response was to invoke the extradition treaty and demand that Edward Snowden be returned to the U.S. to stand trial for having disclosed this massive assault on the privacy rights of Hong Kong people. Only because he was spirited quickly out of Hong Kong and onto an international air flight did he avoid the brutal treatment he would have received at the hands of U.S. authorities for exposing their crimes against Hong Kong.

It should be noted that the U.S. regime has never apologized for this gross infringement on the rights of Hong Kong people; nor to my knowledge has it even stated that it would not do so again. Yet the extradition treaty which was used against the man who awakened Hong Kong to the threat has “never” been questioned.

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Articles by: Eric Sommer

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