On Thursday, A teenage Hong Kong democracy activist was charged with secession, the first public political figure to be prosecuted under a sweeping new national security law Beijing imposed on the city.
Tony Chung, appeared in court two days after he was arrested by plainclothes police in a Hong Kong coffee shop opposite the US consulate, also charged with money laundering and conspiring to publish seditious content.
He was remanded into custody until his next court hearing on January 7 and faces a possible life prison sentence if convicted under the new law.
Chung is a former member of Student Localism, a small group that advocates Hong Kong’s independence from China.
The group said it disbanded its Hong Kong network shortly before Beijing blanketed the city in its new security law in late June but kept its international chapters going.
Chung and three other members of Student Localism were first arrested by a newly created national security police unit in July on suspicion of inciting secession via social media posts.
On Thursday, Amnesty International said the charges showed authorities were wielding the law to criminalise peaceful political expression.
“The intensifying attack on human rights in Hong Kong has been ramped up another notch with this politically motivated arrest in which a peaceful student activist has been charged and detained solely because the authorities disagree with his views,” said Joshua Rosenzweig, head of Amnesty’s China team.
The United States also condemned Chung’s arrest.
A State Department spokesperson said: “The use of the National Security Unit of the Hong Kong Police Force for the detention of a minor in a coffee shop is reprehensible.”
