UK Foreign Minister Accuses China Of Using Hong Kong New Security Law To Target Dissidents

LONDON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 17th June, 2021) UK Foreign Minister Dominic Raab said on Thursday that China was using the national security law recently implemented in Hong Kong to target "dissident voices," following the arrest of five executives of the Apple Daily newspaper, a vocal opponent of Beijing in the former UK colony.

Apple Daily reported that hundreds of police officers had raided the news outlet's headquarters in the Tseung Kwan O district in Hong Kong early in the Thursday morning. The newspaper added that the five executives arrested were accused of "collusion with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security."

"Today's raids & arrests at Apple Daily in Hong Kong demonstrate Beijing is using the National Security Law to target dissenting voices, not tackle public security," Raab wrote on Twitter.

The foreign secretary recalled that freedom of the press was one of the rights China promised to protect in the Sino-British Joint Declaration that paved the way for Hong Kong's handover from UK to Chinese control in 1997, and "should be respected.

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China's newly-adopted law adjusts security policies in Hong Kong to Beijing's perception of crime and punishment with regard to separatism, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign countries. The critics of the law in the Chinese special administrative region and abroad fear that it might limit Hong Kong's exclusive rights and freedoms.

The founder of Apple Daily, Jimmy Lai, became the highest-profile Hong Kong citizen arrested under the new national security law. He was found guilty of organizing and taking part in what the government considers to be unauthorized rallies in the summer of 2019 and sentenced to a year in prison in April. In May, the media tycoon got another 14 months of imprisonment.