China approves arrest of Hong Kong 'speedboat fugitives'
BEIJING, China — Chinese authorities formally approved on Wednesday the arrests of 12 Hong Kong activists caught last month while allegedly trying to flee the city for Taiwan.
The group was snared some 70 kilometres (43 miles) southeast of the city on August 23 while trying to escape by boat, authorities said at the time, adding that they were handed to police in Shenzhen, the mainland metropolis bordering Hong Kong.
They had since disappeared into China's opaque judicial system, with lawyers struggling to access them and family members expressing fear over their fate.
On Wednesday the People's Procuratorate of Yantian District in Shenzhen said it had approved the arrests.
Two of the detainees, referred to as Deng and Qiao respectively, were arrested on suspicion of helping the others escape Hong Kong.
These names were likely to refer to the Chinese surnames of detainees Tang Kai-yin and Quinn Moon.
The other 10 — including suspects surnamed Li and Huang — were arrested for making illegal border crossings.
The case remained under investigation, the statement said.
Families of the 12 said in a statement they were "shocked and concerned" by the approval.
Hong Kong's Security Bureau confirmed that mainland authorities informed local police of Wednesday's approval, but declined to comment on families' complaints of lawyers being barred from visiting the detainees.
Some of those aboard the boat were facing prosecution in Hong Kong for activities linked to last year's huge and often violent pro-democracy protests.
Lu Siwei, one of the mainland lawyers working on the case, told AFP the period of detention for investigation could last up to seven months.
"Review of (the) detention's legality can be applied for any time," Lu added, but said that "for now it remains most important to seek a meeting with the 12 in custody".
At least 14 mainland lawyers hired by the detainees' families have been pressured by authorities to drop their clients, according to activists.
None of the lawyers have managed to see their clients in custody, while senior officials in Hong Kong said the 12 were assigned lawyers by mainland Chinese authorities.
Hong Kong has its own internationally respected common law legal system where detainees are promptly produced after their arrest and tried in open court, but the judicial system on the mainland is notoriously opaque and controlled by the Communist Party, such that conviction is all but guaranteed.
In June, Beijing imposed a new security law on Hong Kong, announcing it would have jurisdiction for some crimes and that mainland security agents could openly operate in the city.
The prospect of Hong Kongers getting entangled in China's judicial system was the spark that lit seven months of protests last year.
The movement began in response to a plan to allow extraditions to the mainland, and soon morphed into wider calls for democracy and greater police accountability.
As Beijing has cracked down on Hong Kong's democracy movement, democratic Taiwan has emerged as a sanctuary, quietly turning a blind eye to residents turning up without proper visas or paperwork.
Millions march in Hong Kong in a powerful rebuke of an extradition law feared to expose them to China's capricious justice system.
Hong Kong national security police on Thursday detained four people, including the brother of prominent activist Dennis Kwok, one of eight fugitives with bounties on their heads for allegedly breaching national security.
The city's national security department "took in two men and two women from various districts in Hong Kong and Kowloon for investigation," a police source told AFP.
Among the four was the elder brother of former democracy lawmaker Dennis Kwok, who is currently in the United States.
"(Kwok's elder brother) is now under investigation in the Western District police station," the source said.
Three others, "two women and a man", were taken in Tuesday by the national security department, authorities told AFP earlier Thursday.
AFP has requested comment from police on the most recent detentions. — AFP
Three family members of exiled democracy activist Nathan Law have been taken in for questioning on Tuesday, days after authorities issued a bounty on him and seven others accused of breaching the city's national security law.
Police officers from the national security department brought in Law's parents and elder brother without formally arresting them, a police source confirmed to AFP.
"It's understood that officers from the NSD took three people -- Nathan Law's parents and elder brother -- in for questioning," they said.
"So far, no arrest has been made." — AFP
The United States condemns Hong Kong authorities for issuing bounties linked to democracy activists based abroad, saying the move sets a dangerous precedent that could threaten human rights.
Hong Kong police offered bounties of HK$1 million (about $127,600) for information leading to the capture of eight prominent dissidents who live abroad and are wanted for national security crimes.
"The United States condemns the Hong Kong Police Force's issuance of an international bounty" against the eight activists, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller says in a statement.
"The extraterritorial application of the Beijing-imposed National Security Law is a dangerous precedent that threatens the human rights and fundamental freedoms of people all over the world," he adds, saying China is engaging in "transnational repression efforts."
"We call on the Hong Kong government to immediately withdraw this bounty, respect other countries' sovereignty, and stop the international assertion of the National Security Law imposed by Beijing." — AFP
Hong Kong's top court has quashed the conviction of a journalist in relation to her investigation into an attack on democracy supporters by government loyalists in 2019.
It was a rare victory for the press industry in a city where two major independent news outlets have been forced to shut down since Beijing imposed a national security law in 2020.
"Happy -- I could not think of another word that can describe my mood right now," veteran journalist Bao Choy said outside the Court of Final Appeal after the judgement was handed down.
"I think this kind of happiness belongs to everyone in society." — AFP
Hong Kong police detained Alexandra Wong, a prominent democracy activist better known as "Grandma Wong" on Sunday, the 34th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, AFP reporters said.
Wong was carrying flowers in Hong Kong's Causeway Bay shopping district, an area that for years was the site of June 4, 1989, commemorations, before authorities escorted her to a police van. AFP reporters saw a total of six people bundled into police vehicles. — AFP
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