HK cops arrest 9 over alleged ‘car bomb’ plot
Six students among those apprehended
HONG KONG: Hong Kong police said they arrested nine people on suspicion of planning bomb attacks, raising fresh concern over potential violence in the aftermath of Beijing’s crackdown on political speech.
The group — aged 15 to 39, including six high-school students — planned to use explosives to attack transportation facilities including train stations and tunnels this month, Senior Superintendent Li Kwai-wah told reporters yesterday. Describing the suspects as independence supporters and members of a group called Returning Valiant, Snr Supt Li said they had set up a lab at a Tsim Sha Tsui hotel and were producing the explosive acetone peroxide.
The suspects wanted “to attack some of the public facilities in Hong Kong, including the Cross-Harbor Tunnel, railways, court rooms and they even wanted to lay bombs in the rubbish bin on the street, with a view to maximise the damage caused to the society”, he said. The group had recruited high-school students to carry out the attacks on the promise that they would get assistance to flee the city.
The nine, including five males and four females, were accused of engaging in terrorist activities under the national security law enacted by China last year. Police also froze about HK$600,000 (about 2.5 million baht) in assets. It wasn’t immediately clear if the case was connected to the May arrests of five people accused of subverting state power, which the South China Morning Post and other local media subsequently linked to Returning Valiant.
The terrorism arrests come at a tense time in the former British colony, with a police officer stabbed last week by an attacker who later killed himself. Democracy activists have long warned that limiting legal options for criticising the government could help drive radicals toward violence.
“This is certainly a tense moment, and one can see that anger and resentment has built up among Hong Kong people, and especially among young people,” said Joseph Cheng, a retired Hong Kong political science professor who moved to Australia after the national security law was enacted.
After some people sought to commemorate the death of the man who stabbed the officer, police warned the public against any “attempt to romanticise or glorify the despicable act with seditious intent to incite hatred in society”. The city’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, told reporters at a regular news briefing earlier yesterday that her office had also received an envelope containing white powder.
“They have now turned from aboveground terrorist activities to underground hidden terrorist activities,” Ms Lam said, adding that the police stabbing was “an alarm”. Ms Lam blamed social media for the spread of extremist views, hinting at future action to curb internet communications.
“Before we have taken action to regulate the information, they have been exposed to hate messages, and they have been influenced in hating the government and also the police,” she said. “They have also been incited to take radical actions.”
Before yesterday, Hong Kong had arrested at least 117 people under the security law. More than four-fifths of the people arrested so far have been accused of offences related to speech.
Last week, police arrested individuals for tossing gas canisters and bottles full of petrol near Ms Lam’s official residence. The incident followed authorities’ decision to ban traditional protests on the anniversary of the city’s return to Chinese rule in 1997, citing coronavirus measures.
The white powder sent to Ms Lam’s office is still being analysed, but police said yesterday that they didn’t believe it was a dangerous substance.
The financial hub has weathered a tumultuous political period since it was rocked by large and sometimes violent anti-China protests in 2019. The unrest dissipated after authorities banned public gatherings, citing the pandemic, and has remained muted since China enacted the security legislation.
Hong Kong police have previously accused political radicals of violent plots involving explosives.
In March last year, police arrested 17 people in connection with suspected homemade bombs after overnight raids on 22 different properties in the special administrative region.