Sun 01 November 2020:
The arrested include current and former opposition lawmakers, according to their political parties and media reports.
Seven pro-democratic politicians in Hong Kong have been arrested over protests and scuffles that broke out in the city’s legislature earlier this year, according to a police statement.
The seven politicians – four of them sitting legislators – were arrested on Sunday on charges of “contempt” and “interfering” with members of the city’s Legislative Council in early May, police said.
A police statement said that six men and one woman had been detained on suspicion of contempt and interfering with legislative members. It did not name them.
The statement said the arrests are part of an investigation into a May 8 committee meeting in which pro-democracy lawmakers rushed toward the chairperson’s seat and security guards shoved back.
The guards carried out several pro-democracy lawmakers, including Eddie Chu and Ray Chan, after they had been ordered to leave for disorderly conduct. Both stepped down on September 30.
Chan said on Twitter that he was arrested at 7 am Sunday, and Hong Kong media said that Chu had also been arrested.
The Democratic Party said on its Facebook page that three of its legislative members had been arrested including party chairman Wu Chi-wai.
The May 8 incident was the first in a series of scuffles over a bill approved in June that made it illegal to insult the Chinese national anthem.
The Liaison Office – which represents Beijing’s central government in the city – has warned that future legislature protests constitute one of the new national security crimes, which carries between 10 years to life in jail.
In September, elections for the legislature were postponed for a year; authorities blamed the coronavirus for the delay.
National security law amid protests
China’s parliament passed national security legislation for Hong Kong earlier this year, aimed at curbing subversive activity, with Beijing pushing for it after a months-long anti-Beijing protest movement at times saw violent clashes between police and protesters.
Opponents of the anthem bill and the national security law have seen them as signs of Beijing’s tightening control over the territory.
Beijing began pushing for the anthem law after Hong Kong soccer fans jeered the national anthem at international matches in 2015.
As anti-government protests engulfed Hong Kong last year, thousands of fans booed loudly and turned their backs when the anthem was played at a World Cup qualifier match against Iran in September.
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