Hong Kong pro-democracy politicians arrested
The police arrested six men and one woman early Sunday who were involved in heated disputes in May over the control of a key committee in Hong Kong’s Legislative Council that descended into scuffles between pro-democracy and pro-China lawmakers.
The seven lawmakers are accused of acts of contempt and interference. The police did not rule out the possibility of arresting more people over the incident.
Context: The governments in Hong Kong and Beijing have carried out a clampdown on dissent after the semiautonomous city was convulsed with protests in 2019. Beijing imposed a national security law there in June that allows for potentially tough penalties for a series of poorly defined offenses like subversion and collusion, and the authorities have also made aggressive use of social-distancing rules against protesters.
The New York Times
