Protest group under review in widening crackdown

HONG KONG — Hong Kong police are reportedly investigating the group that organizes an annual protest march marking the semiautonomous territory’s handover to China for possible violation of the national security law.

Police are gathering evidence and could take action against the Civil Human Rights Front, which holds the July 1 march each year and also organized some of the bigger political protests that roiled the city in 2019, Police Commissioner Raymond Siu Chak-yee told Ta Kung Pao newspaper in an interview.

Siu told the newspaper that the group never formally registered with the government nor the police since it was established in 2002. “Anyone who violates the law, they better not think they can escape,” he was quoted as saying.

The group would be the latest target of a sweeping crackdown on dissent that has followed Beijing’s imposition of the national security law on the territory last year. The legislation outlaws secession, subversion, terrorism and foreign collusion and has been used to arrest more than 100 pro-democracy figures since it was first implemented a year ago as well as the closure of pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily.

The crackdown has virtually silenced opposition voices in the city — and drawn sanctions from the U.S. against Hong Kong and Chinese government officials.

The South China Morning

Post newspaper reported Friday that the Civil Human Rights Front had decided to disband, but did not publicly announce the decision. The group did not respond to requests for comment.

The group organized huge protests in June 2019 against a proposed extradition law that would have allowed suspects in Hong Kong to stand trial in mainland China, where the judicial system is opaque and often criticized as abusive. The proposed law was seen as further infringement from Beijing on the freedoms the former British colony was promised it could maintain following the 1997 handover.

Although the proposed bill was eventually withdrawn, the protests later burgeoned into broader calls for greater democratic freedoms, leading to months of demonstrations that at times turned violent.

Since the national security law was enacted, many unions, associations and political organizations have disbanded amid concerns that the law could be used to target them.