Last month, 12 Hong Kong people who had absconded by boat to Taiwan to seek political asylum were intercepted by the Guangdong Coast Guard and allegedly detained in the Shatian District Detention Center in Shenzhen, Hong Kong’s Chief Secretary for Administration Matthew Cheung told the media on September 19 that he had negotiated with the mainland authorities and learned that the 12 people were in good health. He admitted that it would be difficult to bring the 12 Hong Kong people back to Hong Kong. On the same day, Secretary for Security Li Ka-chiu said in an interview, “All of them chose their lawyers according to the list of lawyers provided by the authorities.”
On August 26, the Chinese Coast Guard microblog released a news release stating that on August 23, at about 9:00 pm, the Guangdong Coast Guard seized a speedboat suspected of illegal border crossing in the southeastern direction of Guangdong port and arrested more than 10 people, including Li and Deng, suspected of illegal border crossing. It was later reported that there were 12 Hong Kong youths on board the speedboat, who were heading to Taiwan, including Lee Yue-hsien, a member of the anti-reform group “Hong Kong Story”. Lee was arrested on suspicion of violating Hong Kong’s National Security Law and later released on bail.
The U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement that the U.S. is deeply concerned about the incident and urged authorities to ensure that the arrested individuals are treated with due process of law. Some of the families of the 12 detainees held a press conference recently, stressing that they have been discouraged from hiring lawyers in China and refusing to accept “government-appointed lawyers” for their loved ones.
Zhang said the government, the Guangdong office and the Immigration Department have been closely monitoring the situation and found that the 12 people are in good health. He also said the Immigration Department had met with the families eight times in Hong Kong and, together with the Guangdong office’s follow-up, had contacted them more than 80 times. Zhang said, “Many people think that we are not doing anything, but in fact it’s just the opposite. He stressed the need to respect the country’s judicial power and procedures, but acknowledged the difficulties in bringing them back to Hong Kong. In a separate interview, Li pointed out that the twelve were in good health and had each “selected” two lawyers, or “government lawyers,” from a list of lawyers provided by the mainland authorities to represent them.
When asked whether the families were aware that they had appointed lawyers before the decision was made to “choose” the lawyers to represent them, Lee was quoted as saying that the details would have to be asked for by the mainland authorities. As for the possibility of providing the family with information about the representative’s lawyer and arranging contact between the family and the mainland’s “official lawyer,” Li replied that the request had been clearly reflected to the local law enforcement authorities, but he said Hong Kong people were familiar with and used to the Hong Kong legal system, but that foreign countries had their own laws and regulations.
Li said the Hong Kong government will try to fight for the rights and interests of those arrested according to local laws and regulations, “but you can’t necessarily conform to what we’ve always done before. According to Standpoint News, the families of the 12 Hong Kong residents later issued a statement saying they were “dismayed and dismayed” by the statements of the two Hong Kong government officials, stressing that they had repeatedly stated their rejection of “government-appointed lawyers,” urging the authorities to immediately allow lawyers commissioned by the families to meet with the detainees, and criticizing the “government-appointed lawyers. Li’s statement is an attempt to confuse the public and force the families to accept the “official lawyer” imposed on the detainees.
The family also mentioned that Zhang Jianzong said he had contacted the family 80 times, but if the Hong Kong government could not even guarantee that 12 Hong Kong people could meet with a “family lawyer,” “contacting the family 8,000 times will not help” and questioned whether Zhang Jianzong and Li Jiachao had personally visited the detainee’s family. Interviews with 12 people at the detention center, “Why else would you say with confidence that 12 people are in good health?” The families demanded that Zhang and Li meet with their families as soon as possible, actively protect the basic rights of the 12 Hong Kong people, and reiterated their four demands, including rejecting “government-appointed lawyers” and allowing family-appointed lawyers to meet with the detainees immediately; demanding that the Chinese authorities provide the 12 Hong Kong people with proper medication, allow them to call their families, and requesting that the Hong Kong government ensure that the “government-appointed lawyers” are allowed to meet with the detainees. In addition to the rights of Hong Kong people, the 12 Hong Kong people were immediately taken back to Hong Kong.
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