US Secretary of State Joe Biden has slammed the arrest of dozens of opposition figures in Hong Kong under a controversial national security law, an unprecedented crackdown on a U.S. lawyer.
Police said they located 53 people in the operation on Wednesday and that about 1,000 officers were sent to carry out the arrest. Those arrested included several leading former lawmakers and allegations focused on an informal by-election that drew more than 600,000 voters in July to select candidates for a September legislative election that was subsequently postponed by the government. .
Forty-five men and eight women have been arrested, Li Kwai-wah, senior superintendent of the Hong Kong Police National Security Department, told a news conference. He said police visited the offices of four local media to ask for information on the primary case.
“The far-reaching arrests of pro-democracy protesters are an assault on those who bravely advocate for universal rights,” tweeted Antony Blinken, Biden’s nominated candidate for foreign minister. “The Biden-Harris government will stand with the people of Hong Kong and oppose Beijing’s repression of democracy.”
According to Jonathan Man, a partner at Ho Tse Wai & Partners in Hong Kong, attorney John Clancey, who served as treasurer for the primary organizers, has been arrested. Clancey is a lawyer. Man said Clancey is a U.S. citizen who could potentially provide a new source of tension between Beijing and Washington.
Photographer: Chan Long Hei / Bloomberg
Clancey is also the chairman of the Asian Human Rights Commission and the Asian Legal Resource Center and a founding member of the Executive Committee of the China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group, according to his Ho Tse Wai biography page.
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The mass arrests of largely moderate pro-democracy campaigners accelerated a continuing political repression in the Asian financial center, prompting condemnation of foreign governments, US sanctions and the suspension of numerous extradition agreements with Hong Kong. The move comes as the outgoing Trump administration continues to hit Beijing over its assertive policies in the city and as Biden prepares to take office this month, with China facing one of its key foreign policy challenges.
“This is a total sweep of all opposition leaders,” he said. Victoria Hui, associate professor at the University of Notre Dame specializing in Hong Kong politics. ‘If it is eligible and wants to win elections, it is clear that the NSL is aimed at the total subjugation of Hong Kong people. There can be no expectation of elections, in no sense that we know if and when elections will be held in the future. ”
Authorities respond
Secretary of Security John Lee an afternoon letter tells that activists were arrested because they intended to bring about ‘mutual destruction’ in an attempt to paralyze the government and that the detention was necessary due to alleged undermining. The opposition figures wanted to plunge the city into an “abyss,” Lee said.
Former lawmakers Alvin Yeung, James To, Andrew Wan and Lam Cheuk-ting, as well as prominent academic and activist Benny Tai, were arrested by police’s national security branch on allegations of undermining, according to Facebook posts and Facebook. media reports. Former lawmaker Claudia Mo, one of the city’s most outspoken critics of China’s Hong Kong policy, was also detained.
Benny Tai, center, arrives at Ma On Shan police station after being arrested on January 6 in Hong Kong.
Photographer: Chan Long Hei / Bloomberg
The National Security Act was enacted by Beijing in June by the former British colony, leading to international condemnation led by the US that Beijing had renounced promises to guarantee the city’s unique freedoms after its return to Chinese rule.
While Chinese officials have justified the legislation – which hampers undermining, terrorism, secession and collusion with foreign powers – as an essential tool to suppress local unrest and restore the city to historic protests in 2019, the law has so far been used mainly against violent political opponents and dissidents.
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Lawyer Holden Chow tweeted that those arrested on Wednesday violated the security law because they had a ‘clear purpose to paralyze local government’ and threatened to “remove Chinese sovereignty over Hong Kong”. Erick Tsang, secretary for mainland and constitutional affairs, said before the election in July last year that it could violate national security legislation.
At the time, Tai dismissed criticism of the primary as ‘absurd’.
Fraught Primary
The opposition a primary contest at the heart of the latest police force has drawn 610,000 residents to the polls – more than 13% of the city’s registered voters – in a procedure common in democracies worldwide. The turnout highlighted the momentum created by the historic protest movement in Hong Kong, which opposition democracies hoped to capitalize on in a Legislative Council election originally scheduled for September.
Opposition figures had hoped to gain access to a provision in the city’s charter to force CEO Carrie Lam to resign by voting her budget. The by-election was condemned by China’s top Hong Kong agencies as an ‘illegal manipulation’ of the city’s electoral system and a violation of national security law.
People are queuing up at a polling station to vote during an unofficial primary election, to select candidates for the upcoming legislative election, July 2020.
Photographer: Lam Yik / Bloomberg
The Hong Kong government first disqualified a number of opposition figures and then delayed the election by a full year, citing the coronavirus.
US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said at the time that there was “no valid reason for such a long delay” and that the “deplorable actions confirm that Beijing does not intend to break the commitments made to the Hong Kong people” do not maintain. “
– With help from Kari Soo Lindberg, Young-Sam Cho, Foster Wong, David Ingles, John Cheng and Chloe Lo
(Updates with police briefings.)