May 28. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Hong Kong security forces arrested six people on Tuesday accused of sedition crimes, the first to be arrested in relation to the controversial national security law, which came into force in March and establishes new crimes.
The arrest occurred just a few days before the 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre, an issue that raises acrimony in the Asian giant every year. The head of Security of the Chinese special administrative region, Chris Tang, has confirmed the arrests and has indicated that they are linked to a Facebook group that was dedicated to supporting the activist and lawyer Chow Hang Tung, detained since September 2021.
The Police have explained that those arrested are five men and a woman who acted with “seditious intentions”, especially by publishing content of this type on their social networks. Thus, he has accused the detainees of being “publishing information to incite the population to commit illegal acts on politically sensitive dates.”
In this sense, he has clarified that all of them have been accused of violating the national security law, so they could face sentences of up to seven years in prison if found guilty, according to the HKFP organization.
The legislation, which includes life sentences and establishes five new crimes – such as espionage, sabotage and foreign interference – allows the completion of the already controversial national security law approved by Beijing more than three years ago.
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