Four Hong Kong students involved in a recently disbanded pro-independence group were arrested by police on Wednesday, July 29, under a controversial new national security law, officers and members of the group said.
"Our sources and investigation show that the group recently announced on social media to set up an organization that advocates Hong Kong independence," Li Kwai-wah, an officer from a new national security unit within the Hong Kong police told reporters. "If anyone who tells others that he advocates violating the national security law from abroad, even he does that from overseas, we have the jurisdiction to investigate these kind of cases," he told reporters.The security law has sent a chill through Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous city supposedly guaranteed 50 years of freedoms and autonomy from Beijing under a"One Country, Two Systems" arrangement agreed ahead of the 1997 handover from Britain.
The first arrests after the law was enacted were made against people who possessed pro-independence flags.