Hong Kong arrests eighth person for Tiananmen social media posts

A Correctional Services Department van carrying Chow Hang-tung, a leader of a Hong Kong Alliance that organized vigils marking China’s Tiananmen Square crackdown, arrives at the Court of Final Appeal (CFA) in Hong Kong on June 8, 2023, as the Department of Justice (DoJ) applies to the city’s top court to overturn a ruling that acquitted Chow in relation to a banned vigil in 2021. FILE PHOTO/Agence France-Presse

HONG KONG — Hong Kong police arrested an eighth person over social media posts about commemorating Beijing’s 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on Monday, the eve of the bloody incident’s 35th anniversary.

The arrest was the latest in a series of law enforcement actions taken since last Tuesday against a group that was accused of publishing “seditious” online posts to “take advantage of an upcoming sensitive day”.

The group was the first nabbed under Hong Kong’s “Safeguarding National Security Ordinance”, the city’s second national security law, enacted in March following another security law imposed by Beijing in 2020.

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The police said on Monday the eighth person arrested was a 62-year-old man, who was suspected of committing an “offense in connection with seditious intention” — the same offense the first seven were arrested under last week.

It carries a penalty of up to seven years in jail under the new security law.

Among those arrested last week was Chow Hang-tung, a prominent activist who led the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance that once organized annual vigils to mark the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Jailed since 2021, Chow is already serving a more than 30-month jail sentence over other charges, including “unauthorized assembly” for her attempt to publicly commemorate the June 4 anniversary.

Hong Kong’s security chief said last week the group made online posts that “were trying to incite disaffection and distrust — and even hatred — against the central government, the Hong Kong government and the judiciary”.

READ: China, Hong Kong scrub Tiananmen memories on anniversary

Six of them have been released on bail and subject to a “movement restriction order”, according to the police.

Hong Kong used to be the only place under China’s rule where public commemoration of Beijing’s deadly clampdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, was allowed.

The three-decade tradition has been banned since 2020, when Beijing imposed the first national security law on the financial hub to quell dissent following huge, and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests the year before.

Over the weekend, a Hong Kong Christian weekly newspaper pulled its front-page article about the 35th anniversary, explaining in an editorial that Hong Kong’s society has “become more restrictive”.

A university students’ publication axed its campaign to collect people’s recollections of the crackdown due to “factors we cannot resist”, according to a post on their official social media page on Saturday.

And on Sunday, an independent bookstore said on their Instagram that several police officers were around the premises for an hour, taking down names of customers, after its staff had put “5.35” — a coded reference to June 4 — on its window.