Thank you for the question.
I think that, obviously, the first challenge would be access on the ground. I imagine the Hong Kong government officials and Chinese officials would be quite obstructive to a UN special rapporteur operating in Hong Kong.
Given the number of pro-democracy parties and pro-democracy-leaning civil society organizations that dissolved in the last eight months, I think it would be quite hard to engage on a community level. I imagine they also would probably be denied access to a number of the pro-democracy activists who are now behind bars.
Nonetheless, I think it is tantamount.... It is really quite important that there be a special rapporteur for this reason, so we can get credible information about the human rights abuses that are taking place in Hong Kong and get up-to-date reports.
For organizations like ourselves at Hong Kong Watch, increasingly, the contacts we have on the ground are running out as many of them are ending up in jail.