More Arrests in Hong Kong

The New York Times reports that Honk Kong police have arrested prizewinning journalist Choy Yuk-ling (a.k.a. Bao Choy). Choy, a producer with Radio Television Hong Kong, was reportedly arrested on Tuesday, and accused of making a false statements in connection with a request for license information from a publicly accessible database.

According to the Times, “Such offenses could be punishable with fines of $645 and six months’ imprisonment.” In its own article on Choy’s arrest, BBC News stated, “Authorities said she had been arrested for illegally using a car registration search as part of an investigation. … [But Radio Television Hong Kong] linked Ms. Choy’s arrest directly to a documentary she made for the the station about a July 2019 attack on pro-democracy protesters, in which dozens of men armed with sticks, metal rods and bats, and suspected to be triad gangsters, attacked people returning from a demonstration.”

Choy’s arrest comes shortly after an unrelated incident in which police arrested eight pro-democracy politicians over the course of two days.

As The New York Times reported on Nov. 1, 2020, “The politicians arrested … were involved in heated disputes over the control of a key committee in Hong Kong’s Legislative Council. A pro-democracy lawmaker had for months stalled debate on several key bills, infuriating the establishment camp and drawing condemnation from the government and Beijing’s powerful liaison office in Hong Kong.” According to Al Jazeera, those arrested were held “on charges of ‘contempt’ and ‘interfering’ with members of the city’s Legislative Council in early May.”