HK widens crackdown, nabs 9 more activists

HONG KONG — Hong Kong authorities expanded their crackdown on the Chinese-controlled territory's opposition with a fresh round of arrests of prodemocracy activists yesterday.

Police detained up to nine activists for their apparent involvement in an anti-China protest last year, according to social media posts from two political parties, Demosisto and League of Social Democrats, whose members were among those arrested.

The arrests come ahead of an expected visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping on July 1 for the 20th year anniversary of the city's handover from Britain to China.

On Wednesday, police arrested two pro-independence lawmakers who were disqualified in a dispute over their oaths.

The pair, Sixtus Leung and Yau Waiching of the Youngspiration party, were charged with unlawful assembly and attempted forcible entry relating to a scuffle in the legislature's chamber last November.

Leung and Yau angered Hong Kong's Beijing-backed government when they used their swearing-in ceremony in October to stage an apparent protest by inserting antiChina insults into their oaths.

Their attempts to enter the legislature during subsequent sessions to take their oaths properly descended into chaos when they were barred from the chamber while awaiting a court ruling, which later disqualified them from office.

The two young activists were part of a new wave of lawmakers advocating greater separation from the mainland. They were newly-elected to office last year amid a rising tide of anti-China sentiment in Hong Kong, where fears are rising that Beijing is tightening its grip on the semiautonomous city.

Leung said the charges, which related to events on Nov. 2, were "ridiculous."