China reveals foreigner jailed for 11 years, mainland students arrested over Hong Kong protests
- Top law enforcement agency releases details of four national security cases involving mainland students
- State television also gives more information on the case of a Chinese-born Belize businessman who was prosecuted a year ago
Changanjian, the official social media account of China’s top law enforcement agency, the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, on Thursday made public details of the four cases involving students who had studied outside the mainland.
They included two students who were studying in Hong Kong and were arrested by the national security authority last year for taking part in protests in the city in 2019. The protests began in opposition to an extradition bill but escalated into an anti-government movement.
07:30
China’s Rebel City: The Hong Kong Protests
The Changanjian post said a 25-year-old mainland student surnamed Chen, who had studied at both the University of Hong Kong and Chinese University of Hong Kong, had posted remarks on social media supporting the anti-extradition movement and attacking the government, including using the slogan “Liberate Hong Kong”.
A second man, surnamed Yang, 26, was accused of being an administrator of an online anti-China group while he was in Hong Kong studying. Changanjian said Yang had posted messages supporting violence during the 2019 turmoil, led a discussion on how to discredit the local police and had tried to spread those messages to the mainland after being trained by “a hostile organisation”.
In a third case, a 22-year-old journalism student surnamed Tian, who was said to have interned at a “well-known Western media” outlet in Beijing, faced a closed-door trial in November, accused of collecting and providing materials to smear China to an unnamed Western country “under the instruction of more than 10 officials”.
The Changanjian post said a fourth case involved a student surnamed Zhang who reportedly turned himself in to authorities in April last year, confessing he had helped a foreign intelligence organisation to take photos at the military port in Shantou.
The post said the four students had all “confessed to their wrongdoing” but it did not give further details.
CCTV said China’s national security agency had found a “large amount of funds” had flowed from the mainland to Hong Kong through underground channels in June 2019 to support the protests. It said Shanghai-born Lee, 66, was subsequently identified by the agency as one of the main sources.
Hong Kong must show resolve in defending ‘bottom line’ of national security: Beijing official
Chow, who is now studying at the University of California, Berkeley, posted on Facebook on Thursday that he had only met Lee for “a few minutes” at the exit of Diamond Hill MTR station in Hong Kong in the summer of 2015.
“Based on my vague memory, Mr Lee said that he was very supportive of the democratic movement in Hong Kong and China, and he praised the democratic movement in Hong Kong,” Chow posted. Chow denied he had received any funding from Lee.
06:05
47 Hong Kong opposition activists charged with subversion under national security law
Lee testified at the trial of Bo Xilai – the disgraced former Chongqing party chief who was jailed for life for corruption – that Lee and his Shanghai company Meidong had been involved in a sophisticated US$3 million transaction orchestrated by tycoon Xu Ming to buy a villa on the French Riviera for Bo’s wife Gu Kailai in 2000, according to the court verdict.
