Twelve Hong Kong people, including those arrested on suspicion of violating Hong Kong’s National Security Law, have been detained for two weeks now by China’s Coast Guard on suspicion of smuggling, but mainland Chinese lawyers commissioned by the families of the Hong Kong people have still not been able to meet with them.
The two Hong Kong electronic media reported that Lu Siwei went to the Shenzhen Yantian Detention Center yesterday morning and asked for a meeting with the person in question, but was refused by the detention center. The police officer claimed that he did not have a “notary certificate” to verify the identity of the client’s family member and could not meet with him. However, Lu Siwei said that lawyers are not required to provide a “notary certificate” for criminal proceedings in mainland China, and he asked for a legal basis for this, but to no avail, and waited for three hours without being able to meet with his client.
According to Cable News, another lawyer, Bill Fan, who was appointed by the family of a Hong Kong resident, also applied for a meeting with him in the afternoon of the same day with the same power of attorney, but was also rejected for the same reason as Lu Siwei. The other lawyers also applied for a meeting at the detention center in the last two days, but were also rejected, the source said.
The station quoted an unnamed lawyer as saying that only civil cases require notarization by the client, but the recent Vietnamese smuggling case he handled allowed him to meet with his client without notarization.
In addition, Lu Siwei quoted the detention center staff as saying that his client might be charged with “organizing others to cross the country’s borders” (commonly known as “snakeheads”), which is a more serious charge than the original charge of smuggling. He added that the detention center staff did not say explicitly that the case was still under investigation.
Under China’s criminal law, smuggling is generally punishable by less than one year in prison, but organizing another person to smuggle people across the border is punishable by two to seven years in prison, or up to life in prison if the crime is particularly serious, such as being the leader of a smuggling syndicate or resisting violently during an interception.
The 12 young Hong Kong detainees were intercepted by the Guangdong Coast Guard on August 23rd on suspicion of smuggling into Taiwan. According to the mainland Coast Guard’s microblog, the authorities were in “waters under the jurisdiction of mainland China” (21°54’00”N, 114°53 ’00”E), southeast of Hong Kong (there are references to the fact that this is only the waters under the jurisdiction of Chinese personnel). The police have also arrested more than a dozen people for allegedly crossing the border illegally, including Lee and Deng. The media cited that the “Li Yuyou” is the one arrested on suspicion of violating the National Security Law, and most of the others were involved in demonstrations against the amendment of the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance, and some of them are awaiting investigation or trial on bail. However, the Hong Kong government does not appear to have any intention of asking the mainland to repatriate the 12 to Hong Kong for trial, as Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor made it clear in her response earlier this month that if the illegal activity took place in another jurisdiction, the necessary action needs to be taken by the law enforcement authorities in that jurisdiction.
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