Exclusive | ‘Unprecedented influence’: Hong Kong prisons chief accuses inmates held for national security, protest offences of stirring rebellion behind bars
- Incidents could endanger national security, and show need to prevent some inmates from exerting influence, prisons chief Woo Ying-ming says
- Prison guards have begun monitoring some inmates round the clock, just like key triad figures
In a recent interview with the Post, Commissioner of Correctional Services Woo Ying-ming accused the prisoners of establishing links with outside groups to create a new rebellion behind bars and of spreading hatred of the central and Hong Kong governments.
Some in the group, he said, had behaved in ways not before seen in Hong Kong’s prisons, describing how one former opposition district councillor who returned to a particular detention centre was given a hero’s welcome.
Such displays had to stop, he continued, or those in prison could well end up endangering national security.
“It is not just about nipping it in the bud, but curbing them from sowing the seeds. Prisons are no places for them to cultivate their ideology,” Woo said.
Woo argued that prisons had a key role in safeguarding national security, saying inmates could not be allowed to treat them as fertile ground for radicalisation and recruitment the way some foreign terrorist groups had.