China uses national security as excuse to violate basic human rights, arrests over 50 in Hong Kong

Image Courtesy: Reuters

New Delhi: For the major part of 2020, Hong Kong was gripped by widespread protests. Initially, the protests began against the proposed extradition law but gradually turned into a movement against China’s increasing interference in the affairs of the native populace. The protesters were successful in stopping the extradition treaty but the sheer scale of the protests and the disruption they caused was seemingly a wake-up call for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The Chinese government then moved to introduce the National Security Law (NSL) in Hong Kong. As per the law, any “subversion, terrorism and separatism” would be severely punished. The CCP purposefully left the wordings of the law vague and gave authorities sweeping powers to stamp out any form of dissent in the city. It is under this harsh NSL that over 50 pro-democracy politicians and campaigners were arrested in secretive early morning raids. China has unilaterally carried out a political purge in Hong Kong and its actions are already being condemned as a “despicable” assault on freedom.

The activists that were arrested by the authorities held primaries in July 2020 to run and win a majority of seats in the Hong Kong election. As per reports, the pro-democracy activists have been accused of “subverting state power” by holding primaries that witnessed the participation of 600,000 Hong Kong citizens. The arrests were not only restricted to those that were planning on contesting in the Hong Kong elections, but the authorities also arrested organizers and pollsters. The recent arrests have nearly doubled the number of people arrested under the NSL in Hong Kong. Under the NSL, subversion carries a maximum sentence of life in prison for the main accused.

Among those arrested by the authorities were former lawmakers Helena Wong, Lam Cheuk-ting, Chu Hoi-dick, Claudia Mo and Leung Kwok-Hung. As per the Facebook page of jailed activist Joshua Wong, his home was also raided. A US citizen, John Clancey, was also arrested under the NSL. Clancey, who is a lawyer in Hong Kong, was arrested and his firm's office was visited by the police. Clancey in the past has spoken out vehemently about the legal ramifications of the NSL. According to The Guardian report, Prof Kenneth Chan, a political scientist at the Baptist University of Hong Kong has stated that the raid and arrests conducted by the Chinese government are ‘outrageous and it is not the end, because the purge will go on’. Prof Chan is also the leader of the Election Observation Projects that reported on the primaries, He added that things have deteriorated to a point where it is now tyranny vs democracy and the CCP and China's oppressive regime was using national security as an excuse to violate basic human rights and civil liberties. A senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, Maya Wang, claimed that the mass arrests removed the last “remaining veneer of democracy in Hong Kong”.

According to reports, the Hong Kong police who carried out the arrests stated that the primary elections held in July 2019 intended to paralyze the Legislative Council of Hong Kong and therefore their actions were subversive. Following this same train of thought one can assume that all the 600,000 citizens who participated in the Hong Kong primary elections could be accused of subversion. Sunny Cheung, a pro-democracy activist has stated that every member of the Legislative Council can veto the budget as it is a right conferred to them by law. But these arrests have shown that the CCP will regard any show of resistance or non-compliance as a “subversion” of the government. Cheung also stressed that this was hard proof that the Hong Kong Legislative Council was merely a puppet of the CCP and that it has lost any democratic value.

The early morning raid which saw over 50 pro-democracy activists arrested, was immediately condemned and criticised by the international community. Anthony Blinken, US President-elect Biden’s pick for secretary of state, stated that the arrests were “an assault on those bravely advocating for universal rights’, he also added that the Biden-Harris administration would stand with the people of Hong Kong against CCP’s continued crackdown on democracy and any form of dissent. US Republican Senator Ben Sasse, a member of the Senate select committee on intelligence, calls the raids “despicable” and stated that President Xi was trying to take advantage of a divided and distracted America. The senator labelled the CCP as “cowardly dictators’. The chair of the Swedish Chamber of Commerce also commented on 6" January that the continued political crackdown by the CCP was negatively impacting business.

The NSL was passed on June 30, 2020, by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. The law that applies to Hong Kong was passed without any participation by Hong Kong residents. Similar to the recent arrests, the excessively harsh law received widespread criticism from the international community. As per a report published by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China titled ‘Rapid Deterioration of Human Rights in Hong Kong after Passage of National Security Law’ the definitions of secession and subversion under the NSL were extremely broad and imprecise and did not indicate the kind of actions would fall under their gambit. It added that terrorist activities as listed under Article 24 of the NSL are not in tandem with the United Nations Security Council's definition.

On September 6, 2020, Hong Kong witnessed a march by thousands of citizens to protest against the authority's decision to postpone the Legislative Council election. The Chinese authorities claimed that the protesters were chanting slogans demanding Hong Kong's independence and thereby deemed this protest “unlawful”. On the day of the protest, Hong Kong police conducted widespread stops and searches and arrested nearly 300 people for “unauthorized assemble”. Earlier on August 10, 2020, Hong Kong police arrested 10 democracy advocates and news media executives on a range of charges under the NSL. As per reports, 200 officers raided the office building of Next Digital, the parent company of the pro-democracy news outlet Apple Daily. Among those arrested was the founder of Next Media, Jimmy Lai, and executives Cheung Kim-hung, Royston Chow Tat-Kuen, Kith Ng Tat-kong, and Wong Wai-Keung. From these crackdowns, it seems that the authorities were simply waiting for the enactment of the NSL. China's cruel and restrictive NSL has also managed to stifle academic freedom in the city, as the Hong Kong government is directly or indirectly regulating the political content of books and restricted speech in schools.

This latest arrest of more than 50 pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong has signalled the death of the ‘one country two systems’. These arrests are worrying because the CCP is sending the message that even organizing primary elections now constitutes “subversion”. Those arrested by the authorities represented the most outspoken pro-democracy figures in Hong Kong, especially for the younger generation. The continued politicised use of law enforcement by CCP is wholly inconsistent with the rule of law. It has become painfully obvious that Beijing is trying to silence and stamp out any form of dissent or criticism. The arrests were also strategically made during the final days of the election certification of the US Presidential Election in the hopes that they would go unnoticed. But the arrests have not gone unnoticed. In the past year, the international community has realised that the CCP is willing to use every dirty trick in the book and China's ambitions are costing a very high human price and causing disturbances in the region. The CCP in fact wishes to cement China's place in the world order and ensure that it retains a monopoly on power.