The election of President-elect Joe Biden as US Secretary of State denounced the arrest in Hong Kong of dozens of opposition figures under a controversial national security law, an unprecedented crackdown that included an American lawyer.
Police said they arrested 53 people in Wednesday’s operation and that about 1,000 police officers were dispatched to carry out the arrests. The prisoners included several prominent former legislators and allegations centered on an informal primary that drew more than 600,000 voters in July to choose candidates for a September legislative election, which was later postponed by the government.
There were 45 men and eight women in prison, Li Kwai-wah, senior superintendent of the National Security Division of the Hong Kong police force, told a news conference. He said the police visited the offices of four local media outlets asking for information about the primaries.
“The radical arrests of pro-democracy protesters are an attack on those who courageously defend universal rights,” tweeted Antony Blinken, Biden’s candidate for secretary of state. “The Biden-Harris government will be on the side of the people of Hong Kong and against Beijing’s crackdown on democracy.”
Police arrested attorney John Clancey, who served as treasurer for the main organizers, according to Jonathan Man, a partner at Ho Tse Wai & Partners in Hong Kong, who has handled hundreds of protest cases and where Clancey is a lawyer. Man said Clancey is an American citizen, which could be a new source of tension between Beijing and Washington.
Photographer: Chan Long Hei / Bloomberg
Clancey is also chairman of the Asia Human Rights Commission and Asia Legal Resource Center and a founding member of the Executive Committee of the Defense Group of Human Rights Lawyers in China, according to Ho Tse Wai’s bio page.
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The mass arrests of largely moderate pro-democracy activists accelerate ongoing political repression in the Asian financial center, which has led to condemnation of foreign governments, US sanctions and the suspension of several extradition treaties with Hong Kong. The change comes as the current Trump administration continues to target Beijing because of its assertive policies in the city and as Biden prepares to take office this month, with China representing one of his government’s main foreign policy challenges.
“This is a total scan of all opposition leaders,” said Victoria Hui, associate professor at the University of Notre Dame with a specialization in Hong Kong politics. “If running for office and trying to win elections means subversion, it is clear that NSL aims at the total subjugation of the Hong Kong people. There should be no expectation of elections in any sense that we know if and when elections are held in the future. “
Authorities respond
Security Secretary John Lee said in an afternoon interview that activists were arrested for planning to create “mutual destruction” in an attempt to paralyze the government and that arrests for alleged subversion were necessary. Opposition figures wanted to plunge the city into an “abyss,” said Lee.
Former lawmakers Alvin Yeung, James To, Andrew Wan and Lam Cheuk-ting, as well as prominent academic and activist Benny Tai, were arrested by the police’s national security arm on allegations of subversion, according to posts on Facebook and media reports. Former legislator Claudia Mo, one of the city’s biggest critics of China’s policies in Hong Kong, was also arrested.
Benny Tai, in the center, arrives at the Ma On Shan police station after being arrested in Hong Kong on 6 January.
Photographer: Chan Long Hei / Bloomberg
The national security law was imposed by Beijing on the former British colony in June, prompting US-led international condemnation that Beijing was reneging on promises to guarantee the city’s unique freedoms after its return to Chinese rule.
Although Chinese authorities have justified the legislation – which prohibits subversion, terrorism, secession and collusion with foreign forces – as a necessary tool to repress local unrest and restore the city’s stability after historic protests in 2019, the law has so far been mainly used against non-violent political opponents and dissidents.
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Pro-government legislator Holden Chow tweeted that prisoners on Wednesday violated security law because they had a “clear objective to paralyze” the local government and were threatening to “remove Chinese sovereignty over Hong Kong”. Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs, Erick Tsang, said before the primaries last July that this could violate national security legislation.
At the time, Tai considered these criticisms of the primaries “absurd”.
Primary impairment
The opposition The primary race at the center of the latest police raid drew 610,000 residents to the polls – more than 13% of the city’s registered voters – in a common procedural exercise in democracies around the world. The participation underscored the momentum generated by the historic Hong Kong protest movement, which the pro-democracy opposition hoped to capitalize on in an election to the Legislative Council originally scheduled for September.
Opposition figures hoped to access a clause in the city statute to force Chief Executive Carrie Lam to resign by voting against her budget. The primary was condemned by China’s top agencies for Hong Kong as “illegal manipulation” of the city’s electoral system and a violation of national security law.
People line up at a polling station to vote during an unofficial primary election, to select candidates for the next legislative election, July 2020.
Photographer: Lam Yik / Bloomberg
The Hong Kong government first disqualified several opposition figures and then delayed the election by a year, citing the coronavirus.
United States Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said at the time that “there was no valid reason for such a delay” and that the “regrettable action confirms that Beijing has no intention of honoring its commitments to the people of Hong Kong”.
– With the help of Kari Soo Lindberg, Young-Sam Cho, Foster Wong, David Ingles, John Cheng and Chloe Lo
(Updates with police briefing.)