President-elect Joe Biden’s choice of US Secretary of State condemned Hong Kong’s arrest of dozens of opposition members under a controversial national security bill, an unprecedented crackdown that also involved a US lawyer.
Police said they had carried out 53 people during the Wednesday operation and that about 1,000 officers had been dispatched to carry out the arrests. Those arrested included several leading former lawmakers, and the allegations centered on an informal primary that attracted more than 600,000 voters in July to vote for candidates for a parliamentary election in September, which was subsequently postponed by the government.
45 men and eight women were arrested, Li Kwai-wah, senior inspector in the National Security Division of the Hong Kong Police Department, told a briefing. He said police had visited the offices of four local media outlets to request information about the primary.
“The sweeping arrests of pro-democracy protesters are an attack on those who bravely advocate for universal rights,” tweeted Antony Blinken, Biden’s candidate for secretary of state. “The Biden-Harris government will support the people of Hong Kong and Beijing’s crackdown on democracy.”
Police arrested attorney John Clancey, who served as treasurer for the primary organizers, according to Jonathan Man, a partner at Ho Tse Wai & Partners in Hong Kong who has handled hundreds of protest cases and where Clancey is a lawyer. Man said Clancey is a US citizen and may be another source of tension between Beijing and Washington.
Photographer: Chan Long Hei / Bloomberg
Clancey is also the Chairman of the Asian Human Rights Commission and 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 massive arrests of largely moderate pro-democracy activists are accelerating a continued political crackdown in the Asian financial center, which has led to condemnation by foreign governments, US sanctions and the suspension of numerous extradition treaties with Hong Kong. The move comes as the outgoing Trump administration continues to attack Beijing for its assertive policies in the city and as Biden prepares to come to power this month, with China being one of the major foreign policy challenges.
“This is a total sweep of all opposition leaders,” said Victoria Hui, associate professor at the University of Notre Dame, specializing in Hong Kong politics. “If candidacy and election winning means undermining, it is clear that the NSL is focused on the total subjugation of the Hong Kong population. In no way should elections be expected of which we know if and when elections will be held in the future. “
Authorities respond
Secretary for Security John Lee told an afternoon conference that activists had been arrested for intending to create “mutual destruction” in an attempt to paralyze the government and that the arrests were necessary for alleged subversion. 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 the police’s National Security Service on allegations of subversion, according to Facebook posts and media reports. Also detained was former lawmaker Claudia Mo, one of the city’s most outspoken critics of Chinese policy in Hong Kong.
Benny Tai, center, arrives at Ma On Shan police station after being arrested in Hong Kong on January 6.
Photographer: Chan Long Hei / Bloomberg
The National Security Act was imposed by Beijing on the former British colony in June, which led to the US-led international condemnation that Beijing renounced promises to guarantee the city’s unique freedoms after returning to Chinese rule.
While Chinese officials have justified the legislation – banning subversion, terrorism, secession and collusion with foreign forces – as a necessary tool to quell local unrest and restore stability in the city after historic protests in 2019, the law has so far been mainly used against non-violent political opponents and dissidents.
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Progressive lawmaker Holden Chow tweeted that those arrested on Wednesday had violated security law because they had a “clear goal of paralyzing local government” and threatened to “override Chinese sovereignty over Hong Kong.” Mainland and Constitutional Affairs Secretary Erick Tsang said ahead of the primaries last July that it may violate national security laws.
At the time, Tai rejected such criticism of the primary as “absurd.”
Caught primarily
The opposition The main competition at the heart of the latest police round drew 610,000 residents to the polls – more than 13% of the city’s registered voters – in a process common in democracies around the world. The turnout underscored the momentum generated by Hong Kong’s historic protest movement, on which the pro-democracy opposition hoped to benefit from a Legislative Council election originally scheduled for September.
Opposition figures hoped to gain access to a provision in the city’s charter to force Chief Executive Carrie Lam to resign by cutting her budget. The primaries were condemned by China’s top Hong Kong agencies as an “unlawful manipulation” of the city’s electoral system and a violation of national security law.
People line up at a polling station to vote in an unofficial primary election to select candidates for the upcoming July 2020 parliamentary elections.
Photographer: Lam Yik / Bloomberg
The Hong Kong government first disqualified a number of opposition figures and then postponed the elections for a 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 “regrettable action confirms that Beijing does not intend to honor the commitments it has made to the Hong Kong people. come “.
– Assisted by Kari Soo Lindberg, Young-Sam Cho, Foster Wong, David Ingles, John Cheng and Chloe Lo
(Updates with police briefing.)