This extradition law has far reaching consequences against freedoms and the rule of law that locals have had until now. That's why there's so many people who normally don't mind Chinese geopolitical moves coming out into the streets compared to other protests like the umbrella movement.
Could someone explain how?
The pretext for this is that a Hong Kong resident is recently accused of murdering his girl friend in Taiwan. However this law would expose Taiwan citizens to extradition claims when visiting Hong Kong, so even they are against the law even though it would allow them to extradite the alleged murderer.
>Could someone explain how?
Because there is no such thing as Rule of Law in China. Not in any sense where people understands it. The First Rule of Law in China is Rule of the Party. And there is no system in place that overrules the party. Unlike in the west where there is also something to keep everything in check. The law can also be interrupted in anyway as the Party member wishes, even changing / scrapping it now and trace back all previous wrong doings.
This is fundamentally different to how Rule of Law works in the rest of the world and in Hong Kong.
I am not suggesting Rule of Laws works the same everywhere. But for most developed country, they are at least on the same order of magnitude, China is completely off the chart.
There is the rule of law in HK and, according to this bill, any extradition request will be examined by HK courts with the accused able to defend, in the same way as extradition requests from other countries.
Are you implying that Chinese courts will completely fabricate evidence and that HK courts will blindly rubber-stamp it?
More generally, it's not uncommon for Western countries to have extradition treaties with countries where the justice system is more than dubious, but somehow it does not seem that people are shipped over on these countries' whim.