Hong Kong police arrest stabbing suspect after security law protests

Hong Kong police arrested a 24-year-old man on the metropolis’s airport early on Thursday on suspicion of stabbing an officer throughout protests in opposition to a brand new nationwide security law imposed by Beijing on the monetary hub.

The arrest adopted the newest protests on Wednesday through which police fired water cannon and tear gasoline and arrested greater than 300 individuals as demonstrators defied the sweeping security laws launched by China to snuff out dissent.

In the newest diplomatic tensions over the law, China stated Britain would bear all penalties for any transfer to supply Hong Kong residents a path to settlement within the United Kingdom, and Taiwan suggested residents to keep away from pointless transits by or visits to Hong Kong, Macau or mainland China.

The police had posted footage on Twitter of an officer with a bleeding arm saying he was stabbed by “rioters holding sharp objects”. The suspects fled whereas bystanders supplied no assist, the police stated.

A police spokesman stated the arrested man was surnamed Wong however couldn’t affirm whether or not he was leaving Hong Kong or working on the airport.

Local media, citing unnamed sources, stated the suspect was onboard a Cathay Pacific flight to London attributable to depart simply earlier than midnight. A witness stated three police automobiles drove in direction of a gate as a Cathay Pacific aircraft was making ready to take off and round 10 riot police ran up the bridge to the plane.

The suspect held an expired British National Overseas passport, a particular standing created beneath British law in 1987 that particularly pertains to Hong Kong and offers a path to citizenship, the supply instructed native station Cable TV.

Cathay Pacific didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

Former Hong Kong chief Leung Chun-ying posted on Facebook on Wednesday {that a} bounty of HK$500,000 ($64,513) can be supplied to anybody serving to catch the fugitive.

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Police stated on Wednesday they’d made round 370 arrests for unlawful meeting and different offences, with 10 involving violations of the brand new security law.

The law punishes crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with international forces with as much as life in jail. It will even see mainland security businesses in Hong Kong for the primary time and permits extradition to the mainland for trial in courts managed by the Communist Party.

China’s parliament adopted the law in response to protests final 12 months triggered by fears that Beijing was stifling town’s freedoms and threatening its judicial independence, assured by a “one country, two systems” components agreed when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

Beijing denies the accusation.

Apparently searching for to allay fears that judges for nationwide security instances can be cherry-picked by Hong Kong’s unpopular, pro-Beijing chief Carrie Lam, Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma stated on Thursday that they’d be appointed on the premise of judicial {and professional} qualities, quite than politics.

Chinese state media on Thursday praised the passage of the law, saying it will convey “prosperity and stability.”

“We must face up to the fact that the existence of legal loopholes in safeguarding national security has already made Hong Kong society pay a heavy price,” a commentary in People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party, learn.