Pro-democracy rights activist Benny Tai (2nd R) is taken to a police station in Hong Kong, China, January 6, 2021, as news reporters record through a car window.
More than 50 pan-democratic activists in Hong Kong have been arrested on charges of violating national security laws. This is the largest crackdown on pan-democrats in Hong Kong since the implementation of the new national security law.
The more than 50 pan-democrats were arrested on Wednesday (Jan. 6). The Hong Kong Democratic Party’s Facebook page said former lawmakers James To, Wan Siu-kin and Lam Cheuk-ting were among those arrested.
The Hong Kong Democratic Party’s Facebook page said police arrested the activists because they took part in an independently organized vote last year to elect pro-democracy candidates for the upcoming Legislative Council elections. The Hong Kong government and Beijing warned at the time that the move could run afoul of new national security laws.
The Democratic Party said trying to gain a majority in the 70-seat legislature was seen by authorities as a “subversive act that violates the national security law,” and some candidates said the majority could be used to block government proposals and increase pressure for democratic reform.
That legislative election was later postponed by the Hong Kong government on the grounds of the new coronavirus outbreak.
Senator Ben Sasse, a member of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee and a Republican with a hawkish stance on China, issued a statement saying, “President Xi sees a divided and distracted America, and he has not wasted the moment. These despicable raids and arrests expose the Chinese Communist Party as the cowardly dictator that it is.”
Other reports said that those arrested by authorities on Wednesday also included Hu Zhiwei, former chairman of the Hong Kong Democratic Party, Dai Yaoting, a former associate professor at the University of Hong Kong Law School, former lawmaker Cody Chu and Leung Kwok-hung.
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