HONG KONG-CHINA Hong Kong, the first arrests of the ‘new’ national security hit Tiananmen again

New arrest warrant (notified in prison) against lawyer Chow Hang-tung and five other people who, through a Facebook page, tried to keep alive the memory of the victims of the student massacre 35 years ago. The attack on the eve of the June 4 anniversary. They could receive a sentence of up to 7 years in prison. They had written: “We resist the rewriting of memory.”

Hong Kong (/Agencies) – The Hong Kong police today made the first 6 arrests for the crime of “sedition” within the framework of the new National Security Law approved in March. And – as he set out to demonstrate – he points to well-known figures and crimes of opinion related to June 4, the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. The provision was notified today in prison to lawyer Chow Hang-tung, one of the organizers of the annual vigil in memory of the victims of the 1989 repression, a symbolic voice of the battle for freedoms in Hong Kong, of whom A few months ago we published a very lucid denunciation about the repression that managed to get him out of prison. Five other people who had never been charged until now and who – through a Facebook page dedicated to her – had been publishing material related to the memory of the student massacre in Beijing and the commemoration for a few weeks were also arrested along with her. Of the same.

The Department of Homeland Security stated that the woman, with the help of these five people, used a social media platform since April to “take advantage of a sensitive date that is approaching” (June 4, which today cannot even be named today in Hong Kong ed.) and would have “continuously published messages to incite hatred against the central authorities, the city government and Justice.” Police officers searched the home of the five arrested, four women and one man, aged between 37 and 65, and seized various objects, including electronic devices. For the crime of “sedition” they could receive up to 7 years in prison.

In a press conference held in the afternoon, Secretary of Security Chris Tang Ping-keung stated that the precautionary measures would not refer to “the subject of the publications”, but to having “exploited the issue to incite hatred against the government.” central government, the Hong Kong government and the judiciary.

The Facebook page in question is called ChowHangTungClub and since April 30, he published posts every day about the memory of the events that occurred in Tiananmen Square and about the vigils that were held in Hong Kong until 2019 to remember them. The initiative is linked to the legal battle of Chow Hang-tung, who was arrested precisely for his role in organizing these moments that took place in Victoria Park. That’s why she has been in prison since September 2021 and after almost three years she still has not been tried.

In a post from April 1Chow Hang-tung, indicated an email address to which testimonies could be sent, and wrote: “If in the last thirty years you have participated in vigils carrying your candles, I sincerely invite you to leave your testimony in this process, to share their experiences and the meaning of those moments. If they are willing to testify in court, I am immensely grateful; if they cannot, leaving these testimonies means preserving our true history in that way, no matter how much the prosecution tries to diminish or distort it. our shared past with its arguments, we will not lose our way back and we will be able to find the strength to move forward through the stories of our community. This is also a form of memory. Even more, it is resisting the rewriting of memory.

“Yes, I am showing our cards, which in ordinary cases is usually considered naive and harmful – adds the lawyer who is the subject of the new arrest -. However, we must free ourselves from the misconception that political persecutions are equivalent to criminal cases: ordinary “criminal facts” are usually hidden, they are not necessarily visible, and only the accused knows the whole truth, and the task of the prosecution is Discover what is hidden in the darkness. In such cases, the most ‘advantageous’ strategy for the accused is to remain silent. But our political case is different; The ‘criminal acts’ of which we are accused are inherently public, involve the participation of many and do not concern the private affairs of the accused. The prosecution’s role is not to uncover the truth, but to suppress it: to selectively extract and bury public documents that are already on display to construct a narrative of the crime and leave an authoritative imprint in the courtroom. Therefore – he concluded – the most “advantageous” thing for us is not to participate in the game of rewriting history that a few make, controlled by the accusation, but to restore to everyone the power to write history, allowing all the facts. “As for the events of June 4, it is the prosecution, not us, that wants to hide and trivialize what happened.”

To date, the Facebook page of ChowHangTungClub He has gathered just over 6,500 followers, a figure not very significant for Hong Kong. But the mere fact that someone has challenged fear by publishing their testimony, for those who govern Hong Kong today is a “challenge” that must be quelled. “Those who seek to endanger national security should not delude themselves into thinking that they can evade police investigations with online anonymity,” the police stated, urging the public “not to be misled by false or distorted information, nor to be incited to participate in illegal activities “that may endanger national security” A clear warning when there is one week left until the 35th anniversary of the events in Tiananmen Square.