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That was fast!
As soon as China’s new national security law took effect in Hong Kong, in less than 24 hours, the Hong Kong police brandished their first arrest accomplishment via Twitter.
#BREAKING: A man was arrested for holding a #HKIndependence flag in #CausewayBay, Hong Kong, violating the #NationalSecurityLaw. This is the first arrest made since the law has come into force. pic.twitter.com/C0ezm3SGDm
— Hong Kong Police Force (@hkpoliceforce) July 1, 2020
The person to go down in history as the first arrested individual for violating national security law is a man who was holding a Hong Kong Independence flag.
The law effectively ends “one country, two systems” enshrined in the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s de facto constitution and has been in place ever since Britain handed back control of the territory to China in 1997.
Hong Kong’s government unveiled the text of a draconian new national security law that gives the Chinese government vast new powers to crack down on free speech and dissent in Hong Kong.
The law criminalizes “secession, subversion, organization and perpetration of terrorist activities, and collusion with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security.”
Those who commit such acts — which experts say are vaguely defined in the law, and thus allow for an extremely broad interpretation by authorities — face severe punishment, up to and including life in prison.
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