Carrie Lam denies Hong Kong activist’s sedition arrest a threat to free speech, declines to address police tackling of 12-year-old girl

Criticism of government officials alone not enough to warrant sedition charges, Lam says, while adding the age of the colonial-era law was irrelevant

Asked if police overreacted in treatment of schoolgirl, Lam declines to ‘give opinion on the actual operation’ but says complaints will be investigated

Reading Time:3 minutes

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam meets the media on Tuesday. Photo: Sam Tsang

Published: 1:57pm, 8 Sep 2020Updated: 4:18pm, 8 Sep 2020

Hong Kong’s embattled leader has defended the arrest of an opposition activist with a seldom-used, colonial-era sedition law, saying it had “nothing to do with” freedom of speech and that criticising the government would not fall foul of the offence.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor on Tuesday weighed in on Sunday’s controversial detainment of Tam Tak-chi, vice-chairman of the localist party People Power, for “uttering seditious words” by the police force’s new national security unit.

She spoke just hours before Tam became the first person to be charged with sedition since the city’s return to Chinese rule in 1997. He was charged with five counts of uttering seditious words and another count of acting disorderly in public places, then taken to Fanling Magistrates’ Courts for an afternoon hearing, after spending more than 48 hours in police custody.

The arrest has raised concerns from legal experts, who said the use of the sedition charge – codified in 1938 under the Sedition Ordinance and incorporated into the city’s Crimes Ordinance in 1971 – represented a threat to Hong Kong’s freedom of speech, as it did not have the precision or human rights protections found in modern laws.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam defended the arrest of activist Tam Tak-chi during a press appearance on Tuesday. Photo: Sam Tsang

Speaking to the press ahead of a weekly meeting of the Executive Council, Lam was asked why the police would use a colonial-era law and if it put the city’s freedom of expression in jeopardy.