Four pro-democracy activists with Tiananmen vigil organizer the Hong Kong Alliance were detained by police on Wednesday.
The Chinese government lashed out at Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab in separate statements after the two officials tweeted in support of pro-democracy activists who were arrested by Hong Kong police on Wednesday. Officers with the city’s national security unit detained four members of the Hong Kong Alliance—the group organizing the annual Tiananmen vigil—for failing to submit information including membership details and meeting records, the authorities said. Among those arrested were Hong Kong Alliance Chair Chow Hang-tung, who had been given 14 days to submit the information, according to a notice issued under the sweeping Hong Kong national security law passed by Beijing last summer. The four alliance members were being held at different police stations, the group said in a statement on September 8. In a tweet on the same day, Blinken called on the Hong Kong authorities to « end ongoing threats against civil society and individuals with differing political viewpoints. Today’s arrests of Tiananmen vigil leaders are politically motivated and constitute a blatant abuse of the law by those in power.
