National security law: lawyers challenge arrests of former Studentlocalism members for Facebook post supporting independence

Arresting former members of a Hong Kong pro-independence group under the national security law does not help safeguard China and risks undermining confidence in legislation that is vulnerable to abuse, according to lawyers and legal scholars.

Four suspects aged 16 to 21 from the now-disbanded Studentlocalism were held on Wednesday for secession and inciting secession after another group they were said to be involved in declared its mission to turn the city into a republic.

Randy Shek, a member of the bar council of the Bar Association, said on Thursday the absence of a definition for a seditious act in the legislation imposed on Hong Kong a month ago left enforcement of the law ripe for misuse.

Pleading for the law to be used only as a last resort, Professor Fu Hualing, law dean of the University of Hong Kong, said: “Arresting teenagers for setting up a Facebook group does not help with protecting China’s national security. Nor can it generate confidence in the law.”

Their remarks came a day after Hong Kong’s new police unit enforcing the national security law picked up Tony Chung Hon-lam, a former convenor of Studentlocalism, and another three student ex-members of that now-defunct group. All four are suspected of having links to another organisation, the Initiative Independence Party.

The arrests in Yuen Long, Sha Tin and Tuen Mun marked the first crackdown of its type on anti-government activists not at the scene of street protests.

Studentlocalism was a pro-independence group that disbanded itself on June 30, hours before the Beijing-imposed national security law took effect, banning acts of secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with a foreign country to endanger national security.