Reuters: Hong Kong’s leading youth pro-democracy party, Demosisto, accused Chinese State Security agents of using “scare tactics” to intimidate two activists briefly detained for questioning earlier this year during visits to the mainland.
The Ministry of State Security couldn’t be immediately reached for comment on the two incidents, while the Hong Kong government’s Security Bureau gave no immediate response to a Reuters request for comment.
Demosisto withheld the names of the two party members, one of whom subsequently quit the party. One was held for questioning for five hours during a visit to a city in China’s southern Guangdong province earlier this month, and the other was questioned in March during a trip to another city in the same province.
“We’re not just talking about a simple dialogue with no harm or no threat, we’re talking about our members being detained with a hostile attitude,” said Nathan Law, a founding member of Demosisto and an elected lawmaker who was disqualified from public office by authorities last July.
“It’s definitely a scare tactic,” he told reporters.
The activist held in the most recent incident had recounted how an agent had described Demosisto’s advocacy of Hong Kong’s right to self determination and greater autonomy as being akin to “inciting subversion”.
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