Hong Kong police have arrested six people, marking the first time that the city’s new national security law, known as Article 23, has been used against suspects since it was implemented in March.
The six people, aged between 37 and 65, are accused of publishing messages with seditious intent ahead of an “upcoming sensitive date”, according to a police statement.
One of the women arrested is now in prison. Local media identified her as Chow Hang-tung, a prominent barrister and human rights activist who has been jailed on other charges.
The police said the homes of the five other people arrested were searched, and that electronic devices were seized. “Those who intend to endanger national security should not imagine that they can avoid police pursuit anonymously online,” the police said.
Chow is the former vice-chair of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, a pro-democracy organisation that was disbanded in 2021 during the crackdown on pro-democracy voices in the city.
Next Tuesday, 4 June, is the 35th anniversary of the massacre of protesters by the People’s Liberation Army around Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989. Estimates of the number of people killed range from several hundred to several thousand.
Discussion of the incident is tightly censored in China, with public commemorations banned and online platforms scrubbed of any mention of the killings. People in China sometimes refer to the event as “May 35th”, a coded reference to “June 4th”, because the date is considered so sensitive.
For decades, Hong Kong was the only place on Chinese territory where the Tiananmen Square massacre was publicly mourned on a mass scale. An annual vigil in Victoria Park attracted tens of thousands of people.
But since 2020 the vigil has been banned by the authorities, who initially cited Covid restrictions on mass gatherings. In 2021, the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, the group which organised the 4 June memorials, disbanded, after several of its committee members, including Chow, were arrested and imprisoned.
Hong Kong’s security secretary, Chris Tang, said on Tuesday that the arrests were made in connection with a Facebook group that called for support for Chow, according to Hong Kong Free Press.
“Concerning the sensitive date, actually I think the date itself was not important,” Tang said. “The most important thing is that these people who intend to endanger national security made use of this subject to incite hatred.”
The charges announced on Tuesday carry a maximum sentence of seven years.
Benedict Rogers, the co-founder of Hong Kong Watch, said: “Hong Kong Watch condemns the first round of arrests under the dangerous Article 23 legislation. We should take seriously the plan of the Hong Kong authorities to criminalise perfectly acceptable and peaceful activities that are in line with international human rights law, and respond accordingly.”
The formal name of the new national security law is the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance. It derives from Article 23 of Hong Kong’s Basic Law, the mini-constitution that governs the special administration region of China. It was implemented in March, after being passed unanimously by the city’s opposition-free parliament.
The Hong Kong police and security department have been approached for comment.
