HONG KONG:  , Hong Kong police arrested six people on Tuesday ( May 28 ) under the city’s new security law for “posting messages with seditious intention” online.
The National Security Department of the Hong Kong Police Force, in a statement, said that five people and one person had been detained for “posting communications with subversive purpose on an unnamed social media page since April 2024.”
One of the ladies arrested was already on trial in a optimum- security women’s jail, the police said.
Chow Hang-tung, a well-known advocate who has been imprisoned since 2021, was identified as the lady on custody, according to security chief Chris Tang.
He added that the” Breakfast Suspend- tung Club” was the Twitter page in question.
Chow was the former head of the now-dissolved Hong Kong Alliance, which had held a candlelight vigil every year in Hong Kong to remember the subjects of Beijing’s invasion of Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, when forces stormed the city to oust demonstrations.
Tuesday’s arrests come a week before the game’s 35th celebration, and the speech said that the virtual posts were” taking advantage of an impending delicate day”.
The online messages were written” with the intention of inciting hatred toward the Central Government ( Beijing ), the HKSAR Government, and the Judiciary, as well as to incite netizens to organize or participate in unlawful activities at a later time” ( in the online messages ).
The six people- aged between 37 and 65- were” suspected of violating part 24 of the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, which reads ‘ Offences in connection with seditious intention'”, the speech said, referring to Hong Kong’s recently enacted law.
It would be the first for prosecutions under Article 23 of the law.