Religion as an overlooked category in Hong Kong legislation.

Despite its social and architectural visibility, in Hong Kong religion remains a minority attribute. Tracing the presence, or rather absence, of religion in the territory's current framework laws (the Basic Law, the Bill of Rights, and the Equal Opportunities’ legislation), and its intertwining with ethnicity and race, I suggest that treatment of religious identities in post-British Hong Kong is rooted in an anachronistic historical and colonial holdover related to population classification. As we see in socio-legal practices related to burials, religious congregations, and freedom of religious practice, minorities’ experiences remain locked in “ethno-religious” categories now enshrined in the territory's legal frameworks. This paper thus offers a complementary perspective to understanding the marginal – or overlooked – position of religion in contemporary Hong Kong, via an analysis of its legal interconnection with racial identities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]