Hong Kong Makes First Arrests Under China’s New National Security In The City

Forty days after the Chinese government said it would pass a national security law for Hong Kong, that legislation is now in force — and the effects are already being felt.

As people came out to protest the new legislation, Hong Kong police made the first arrests under the new law, including a man who was holding a black independence flag, and soon afterward a woman with a sign reading “Hong Kong Independence.

There has been a considerable amount of confusion over what the new law will mean for Hong Kongers — it was drafted almost entirely in secret, via closed-door meetings in Beijing that even Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, was not a part of.

The law will broaden the powers of local and mainland authorities to investigate, prosecute and punish dissenters; and criminalizes “acts of secession, subversion of state power, terrorist activities, and collusion with foreign or external forces to endanger national security.” The maximum sentence given for four main crimes — secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign forces — is life imprisonment. (📸: Hong Kong police)