The Legislative Council has rejected a move to censure pro-Beijing lawmaker Junius Ho over his remarks on killing independence advocates “without mercy”.
The motion was raised in October last year by pro-democracy lawmaker Claudia Mo. But pro-Beijing lawmaker Gary Chan raised a counter motion to prevent any action being taken against Ho. His motion passed and overruled Mo’s motion, since his camp has a legislative majority.
“Lawmaker Mo’s motion was silly, meaningless, and an over-exaggeration,” Chan said. “This motion has been delayed for three months – it is actually a good thing. Time shows whether a motion is meaningless… I believe lawmakers and the public would believe that we should not spend time discussing lawmaker Mo’s motion.”
At an anti-independence rally last September, rural leader Tsang Shu-wo said onstage that pro-independence activists should be “killed” – Ho shouted “without mercy” in response. Ho also told reporters afterwards: “If those who are pro-independence lead to the subversion of the fate of the country and cause the 1.3 billion people in Hong Kong and China to pay an enormous price for it, why shouldn’t these people be killed?”
In his defence, Junius Ho said that “yellow ribbon lackays” and “useless lawmakers” took his words out of context to attack him.
“‘Killing without mercy’ was not inciting violence, I did not have such intentions. But my hatred of evil, my patriotic spirit came from [ancient general] Yue Fei; my Hong Kong loving heart came from Lee Kuan Yew,” he said.
“[Lee] was a wise person, a person who did not hide his feelings. It is right to say that I act the same – I will stand up against injustice when I see it,” he added.
“Everybody knows that in my bag I have a hatchet, and a very sharp one. You take me on, I take the hatchet and we meet in the cul-de-sac. Thats the way I had to survive in the past,” he said, quoting Lee, the former Singaporean prime minister. But he did not read the next line of Lee’s comment in 1998, which was “That’s the way the communists tackled me.”
“If you want to be my enemy, please come to Leung Tin Village, I will deal with you there,” he said, referring to his family village.
Pro-democracy lawmaker Ray Chan disagreed that an issue should not be discussed simply because it was outdated.
“In the twisted environment of Hong Kong, officials or lawmakers get through scandals because we don’t have time and the issues grow old. But I still respect lawmaker Mo’s motion,” he said. “Gary Chan is diverting our attention.”
“If we do not use the legislature’s mechanism to handle Junius Ho’s improper speeches, it means the legislature subtly agrees with these hate speeches.”
Pro-democracy lawmaker Andrew Wan had also raised a motion to censure Junius Ho for misconduct and for violating his oath of office after he falsely claimed to be a practising lawyer in England and Wales. The motion was retracted on Wednesday so that another motion to summon new Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng to the Legislative Council could be handled earlier.
Under LegCo’s Rules of Procedure, the LegCo president shall declare that a member is no longer qualified for office when he or she is censured for misbehaviour or breach of oath by a vote of two-thirds of the members present.
