Hong Kong activist Koo Sze-yiu arrested for sedition over plan to protest against ‘unfair’ District Council race – reports
Hong Kong Free Press
Veteran Hong Kong social activist Koo Sze-yiu has been arrested under the sedition law, local media have reported citing sources.
In a statement released on Friday, police said officers from its National Security Department had arrested a 77-year-old man in Cheung Sha Wan that morning on suspicion of attempting or preparing to do an act with a seditious intention.
Sources told local media that the arrestee was Koo, who was jailed for nine months for the same offence last July.
Police said the man, who was not named, had been detained pending investigation.
Sedition is not covered by the Beijing-imposed national security law, which targets secession, subversion, collusion with foreign forces and terrorist acts and mandates up to life imprisonment. Those convicted under the sedition law – last amended in the 1970s when Hong Kong was still a British colony – face a maximum penalty of two years in prison.
9-months’ jail
Last July, Koo was sentenced to nine months in jail over plans to stage a demonstration against the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing held last February.
The demonstration was thwarted by police when officers from the National Security Department detained Koo hours before it was set to take place.
Lui Yuk-lin, a local activist close to Koo, told HKFP on Friday that Koo had planned to stage a protest at the Registration and Electoral Office (REO) in Cheung Sha Wan, but was apprehended before he left home.
According to Lui, Koo intended to demonstrate against what he saw as an “unfair race” in Sunday’s District Council election, citing a lack of candidates from the pro-democracy camp. Koo had informed the REO about his plan, Lui told HKFP.
HKFP has reached out to the REO for confirmation and comment.
Sunday’s election is the first since Hong Kong changed the formation and composition method of the district-level government advisory body. Opposition parties have been effectively barred from joining the “patriots-only” race, after their members did not manage to secure sufficient nominations from members of three government-appointed committees.
As part of the overhaul, candidates must receive a total of at least nine nominations from the committees, which are stacked with pro-establishment figures.
Plans to overhaul the District Council elections were unveiled in May 2023 to ensure only “patriots” were elected, following a pro-democracy landslide at the last polls in 2019.
The number of seats chosen democratically by the public were slashed from 452 to 88 – reducing the power of public votes to a fifth. The rest are to be chosen by the city’s leader and government-appointed committees.
Constituency boundaries were redrawn, the opposition were shut out, voting hours were slashed by an hour, and each local council is to be chaired by a government official, similar to colonial-era arrangements. All candidates undergo national security vetting to ensure patriotism.
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