FIVE DEMANDS:
Protesters against a new national security law march and gesture with five fingers, signifying the ‘five demands – not one less’ on the 23rd anniversary of Hong Kong’s 1997 handover to China from Britain, in Hong Kong yesterday. China enacted this week the national security law that cracks down on protests in the territory. Hong Kong made the first arrests under the new law yesterday.
HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong police made their first arrests under a new national security law imposed by China’s central government, arresting at least two protesters yesterday for carrying flags and signs calling for Hong Kong’s independence.
A man who had a Hong Kong independence flag was arrested at a protest in the city’s Causeway Bay shopping district after police had issued multiple warnings to the crowd that they might be in violation of the law, according to a police statement on Twitter.
Police later arrested a woman for holding up a sign displaying the British flag and calling for Hong Kong’s independence.
Further details were not immediately available. Hong Kong police said on Facebook they had arrested more than 70 people on various charges, from unlawful assembly to violation of the national security law.
The law makes secessionist, subversive, or terrorist activities illegal, as well as foreign intervention in the city’s internal affairs. Any person taking part in secessionist activities, such as shouting slogans or holding up banners and flags urging for the city’s independence, is in violation of the law regardless of whether violence is used.
The arrests come less than 24 hours after the national security law was imposed by China after last year’s anti-government protests in the semiautonomous territory. The law took effect on Tuesday at 11 p.m. (1500 GMT).
The most serious offenders, such as those deemed to be masterminds behind the crimes, could receive a maximum punishment of life imprisonment. Lesser offenders could receive jail terms of up to three years, short-term detention or restriction.
Hong Kong’s leader strongly endorsed the new law in her speech marking yesterday’s 23rd anniversary of the territory’s handover from colonial Britain.
“The enactment of the national law is regarded as the most significant development in the relationship between the central authorities and the HKSAR since Hong Kong’s return to the motherland,” chief executive Carrie Lam said in a speech, following a flag raising ceremony and the playing of China’s national anthem.
“It is also an essential and timely decision for restoring stability in Hong Kong,” she said.
A pro-democracy political party, The League of Social Democrats, organized a protest march during the flag-raising ceremony. About a dozen participants chanted slogans echoing demands from protesters last year for political reform and an investigation into accusation of police abuse.
The law’s passage Tuesday further blurs the distinction between the legal systems of semi-autonomous Hong Kong, which maintained aspects of British law after the 1997 handover, and the mainland’s authoritarian Communist Party system. Critics say the law effectively ends the “one country, two systems” framework under which Hong Kong was promised a high degree of autonomy.
The law directly targets some of the actions of anti-government protesters last year, which included attacks on government offices and police stations, damage to subway stations, and the shutdown of the city’s international airport. Acts of vandalism against government facilities or public transit can be prosecuted as subversion or terrorism, while anyone taking part in activities deemed as secessionist would also be in violation of the new law.