South China Morning PostToday, 12:06
Legislative Council security will be beefed up if pan-democrat members keep protesting during sessions, the Finance Committee chair has warned, after the chaos that accompanied the controversial passage of the extra funding request for the express rail link between Hong Kong and Guangdong.
Chan Kin-por warned such a move would make injuries “unavoidable”.
Chan spoke after the vote on the HK$19.6 billion funding request for the express rail link project in a meeting chaired by acting committee chairman Chan Kam-lam on Friday. Members voted when all pan-democrats left their seats to surround the newly elected Civic Party lawmaker Alvin Yeung Ngok-kiu, who was only given seven minutes to ask questions.
One lawmaker threw ink at Chan Kam-lam.
Further chaos followed in the Saturday meeting, when pan-democrats occupied the chairman’s seat several times.
“If they are doing this again in the meeting on March 18, I would be very angry,”Chan told DBC radio on Monday morning. “I would do something I don’t usually do – meaning I would enhance security measures. Our security guards could prevent them occupying the chairman’s seat, but clashes and injuries would be unavoidable.”
Two more Finance Committee meetings are planned for this Friday and Saturday.
“After taking courteous measures, I would use force,” said Chan, stressing the need to maintain order in the meeting chamber.
“Violence doesn’t work … when have you seen a government that would compromise with terrorists?” he said.
Meanwhile, Chan Kam-lam said the meeting last Friday was “chaos within order”, saying he believed from his observation that there were more supporting votes on the passing of the funding request.
“If anyone questioned the result and said there should be more opposing votes, I must vote on open ballots. But it must be proposed by lawmakers,” said Chan, saying that he followed procedural guidelines despite being criticised for calling the vote abruptly.
He said he changed the meeting room to maintain the dignity of the chamber, as pan-democrats had occupied the chairman’s seat at that time.
He said the chaos “was not coincidence, but produced”, blaming pan-democrats for it.
Pan-democratic lawmaker Cyd Ho Sau-lan said the meeting in question was noisy, and that many people did not know what was happening.
Separately, on the possibility of a candidate from the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong entering the chief executive election next year, Chan Kam-lam said it was reasonable for a mature political party to do so. “It has to be decided by [the party’s] central committee. But I haven’t seen any plans to put it into action yet,” he said.
http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/1924545/hong-kong-legislative-council-security-could-be-increased-if
