Hong Kong national security law used to briefly shut down website run by opposition activists overseas
- Ex-lawmaker Nathan Law led group of eight Hongkongers running the 2021 Hong Kong Charter project
- Web hosting company Wix apologises for removing site ‘by mistake’ after police asked for it to be closed
Wix, the Israeli web hosting service provider, on Thursday apologised for “mistakenly removing the website”, hours after ex-lawmaker Nathan Law Kwun-chung, who ran the site, called its abrupt closure from Monday to Thursday “a clear example of China’s long arm of influence”.
The website, 2021HKcharter.com, was launched in March by a group of eight activists and fugitives overseas. It sought to unite people like them, and the international community, in the fight against what it called suppression of the city’s freedoms and autonomy.
In a post on his Twitter account on Thursday, Law said Hong Kong police had asked Wix, a cloud-based development platform headquartered in Israel, to “disable our website, otherwise the company could be prosecuted”.
“Wix complied,” Law tweeted. “It shows that our freedom of speech is not protected even when we are not in Hong Kong and China.”