U.K.-based human rights group Hong Kong Watch said Ho was detained by Hong Kong’s National Security Police, along with Cardinal Joseph Zen, lawyer Margaret Ng and scholar Hui Po-keung.
The rights group says the arrests are apparently related to their roles as trustees of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, which provided legal aid to people who took part in 2019 pro-democracy protests that were quashed by security forces.
Scores of pro-democracy activists have been arrested under a sweeping National Security Law imposed on the city by Beijing in 2020. Ho was previously arrested and briefly detained in December.
Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly, who had voiced her concern following Ho’s first arrest, reiterated that sentiment on Wednesday.
The Hong Kong national security police arrested 90-year-old Cardinal Joseph Zen, the most outspoken senior Catholic cleric in Hong Kong and the city’s bishop emeritus, along with at least three others on Wednesday for their involvement in a humanitarian relief fund, according to lawyers involved in the case.
The arrests signal a new wave of detentions under the national security law since John Lee was elected as the new chief executive of Hong Kong. He has emphasized that maintaining stability and safeguarding national security would be one of his main goals once in office.
Zen, along with renowned barrister Margaret Ng and academic Hui Po-keung, were arrested under the law for collusion with foreign forces by helping out as trustees for the now-disbanded 612 humanitarian relief fund, according to local media reports.
China will not recognise the British national (overseas) passport as a legal travel document, raising the prospect that the 3 million Hong Kong citizens eligible for the passport will be banned from leaving Hong Kong by the Chinese government.
The warning was made at a press conference by the Chinese ambassador to the UK, Liu Xiaoming, in which he also warned that it was hard to imagine a global Britain that bypassed or excluded China. Decoupling from China would mean decoupling from growth and the future, he suggested.
Can you avoid all of these countries? How could you view this as merely an Asian issue now that you have this piece of information? Are we going to shut our mouth and let China do whatever it wants just because it has reached its hand this far/deep? Or maybe start to care about your government’s, political parties’ relationships with China from now on.
There’s a saying: you don’t want to choose destruction, so you choose humiliation. But after you choose humiliation, you still have to face destruction with humiliation.
Some original texts from the newly passed National Security Law in Hong Kong for explanation:
The Hong Kong security law applys to two kinds of people, HongKongers and non-HongKongers (aka the rest of all of us).
As long as you do anything the Chinese government considers hurting their feelings they can arrest you and block your connection to your resources once you set foot on Hong Kong’s land.
Even when you just want to transfer to another plane during your trip. Even when you just take a plane registered in Hong Kong.
Therefore, if you, my fellow mutuals/followers, have ever participate or share any info on supporting Hong Kong independence as well as Uighur Muslim rights / Taiwan independence / any other human rights issues related to China:
DO NOT enter Hong Kong from now on. You will be in immediate danger once you step into. Cancel your Hong Kong trips/transfer flights in the future if you have one, change your Hong Kong aircraft/shipment to any other whether you booked any. This matters your safety.
China government really just pass this so-call law that apply on everyone on this planet. While living under such fearful and uncertain future, I cannot risk people live outside Hong Kong to be harm.
Its extremely gross that no one on this earth can be safe away from this new “law”, this could be the first time Westerners face the true danger that have been planted by China government since past.
Please look at us and mark our words. I don’t know where is our future, but we are still struggling hard for fighting rights, just like everyone else around the world right now.
The Hong Kong security law applys to two kinds of people, HongKongers and non-HongKongers (aka the rest of all of us). The Hong Kong security law is activated in two kinds of places, Hong Kong and the rest of the world. As long as you do anything the Chinese government considers hurting their feelings (meaning you can’t say anything bad about them. you can’t discuss all the murders, rapping, police brutality, their anti-human acts) they can arrest you and block your connection to your resources once you set foot on Hong Kong’s land. Even when you just want to transfer to another plane during your trip. Even when you just take a plane registered in Hong Kong. The Chinese government has just passed a law that threatens all humans but most people especially western people still don’t care. Hong Kong’s protests have become just news or “nothing serious/important as what they’re facing now” because what western people are facing are always “the most important thing” until they get bitten from the back. And western governments still can’t find the nerves to say anything bad about Chinese government’s anti-human crime, even when after the two World War you’d thought they knew better than the rest of us. But no. All the decorating talking about human rights, progressive society, love is love, but when it comes to China nothing is more important than the mass market, cheap labor, all the trade benefits the Chinese government can give you (but then we all know how they can take that back as they please, or use that as leverage, the more intertwined your government let your present get tied to China, the more dependent your future becomes to the Chinese government) And now people have yet another “good” reasons to say positive things about China or at lease stay the fake, self-protecting neutral now that the Hong Kong security law can affect basically all of us. Not hurt enough. So people still have the thinking that we can do business with the Chinese government. To earn some benefit from them in this globalized capitalism/competitive world. So people shut their mouths and their hearts. But still believe they care about human rights. Such a weird thing.
Tori