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DEVELOPING STORY
Politicians and activists detained in early morning raids in crackdown linked to ‘primaries’ democrats held last year.
Dozens of Hong Kong opposition politicians and activists were arrested on Wednesday morning under the territory’s national security law accused of ‘subversion’ over the primary elections democrats held last July to choose their candidates for legislative elections.
Local media said at least 50 people had been detained in the early morning raids, the biggest crackdown so far under the security law that was imposed by Beijing on June 30. A senior police source who requested anonymity told the AFP news agency “around 50” people had been arrested.
Police arrested the activists for taking part in a ballot last year that was used to select the democratic candidates for the legislative election, the Democratic Party said on its Facebook page.
At the time, the Hong Kong government and Beijing both said the primaries, in which tens of thousands of people voted, could breach the national security law.
The candidate primaries were seen as an “act of subversion, in violation of the national security law”, the party said. Those arrested include former lawmakers and district councillors, as well as student activists, the organisers of last year’s mass marches against the extradition bill.
The election for the new legislature was supposed to take place in September but was delayed for a year by the government citing coronavirus risks.
Beijing imposed the security legislation – approved in record time and with no oversight from Hong Kong – in a move it said it was necessary to deal with ‘separatism’ and ‘foreign interference’ after months of sometimes violent protests in 2019 that were triggered by plans for an extradition bill with the mainland, but evolved into wider calls for democracy.
The law punishes crimes of secession, sedition and collusion with foreign forces with terms of up to life in prison. The details of the legislation were not revealed until after it was passed.
Critics said the law would destroy the freedoms and autonomy promised to the former British colony when Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997.
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