(Hong Kong) Hong Kong is not becoming a ‘police state’, the security official said on Tuesday, days after the deployment of an impressive police force to prevent the commemoration of the Tiananmen crackdown, long tolerated by the authorities from the city.
Posted yesterday at 11:41 p.m.
The once semi-autonomous territory is set to change its chief executive and celebrate the 25e anniversary of the return of the former British colony to China. Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected on 1er July to attend this double event.
Asked by the HK01 news site about a tightening of security on the day, police chief Raymond Siu Chak-yee dismissed criticism that the police had become too powerful.
According to him, “a police state is when the government forcibly controls various aspects of people’s lives through administrative measures and without going through legal procedures”.
“Hong Kong is a society [où règne] the rule of law and is not a police state,” he insisted.
These statements come after the arrest on June 4 of six people for alleged attempts to commemorate in public the 33e anniversary of the repression of the pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.
Amnesty International has accused the city authorities of “harassing” the “indiscriminate” arrests.
The police had closed Victoria Park, a traditional place of commemoration of the bloody events of June 4, 1989, and deployed a large device in the nearby shopping district.
People have been searched for holding flowers, wearing black or even, in one case, a toy tank.
On Tuesday, authorities opened a “counterterrorism hotline.” Residents are encouraged to call it to report “violent acts, activities suspected of being linked to terrorism, in particular extremist plots”.
People will be paid for “reliable” information, they said.
Since Beijing imposed a drastic national security law on Hong Kong in 2020, after huge and often violent pro-democracy protests, the authorities have muzzled all dissent.
In a daily interview South China Morning PostMr. Siu “advised” residents not to watch or download Revolution of our timea long documentary on the 2019 protests. It has recently been available on the American streaming platform Vimeo.