HONG KONG: Five organisers of a massive pro-democracy rally in Hong Kong were charged by police yesterday with minor offences, as pressure builds on Communist Party rulers in China to introduce political reforms in the former British colony.
Tuesday’s pro-democracy march, which organisers said attracted more than half a million, and a subsequent sit-in by mainly student groups rank among the biggest challenges to China which resumed control over the former British colony on July 1, 1997.
Police said charges included failure to comply with instructions from a police officer, obstructing officers from performing their duties, leaving a running vehicle and providing false information to an officer. Police did not name those charged.
“This is political persecution,” said Civil Human Rights Front vice-convenor Icarus Wong. “Five-hundred ten-thousand people marched... the government’s response is to arrest the organisers.”
He said police arrested the front’s Convener Johnson Yeung, the treasurer, a driver, and two volunteer workers. He said one charge — providing false information — brought against one of the organisers was for giving police the incorrect number for a street address, though the correct name was provided.
The July 1 march is an annual event that marks Hong Kong’s return to China as a special administrative region under a “one country, two systems” policy that gives it wide-ranging autonomy and a separate legal system.
This year the march followed an unofficial referendum on democracy.
Six Vietnamese fishermen held
HANOI: Six Vietnamese fishermen have been detained by the crew of a Chinese vessel in the South China Sea, officials of both countries said yesterday, the latest in a two-month fracas between the Communist neighbours over maritime sovereignty.
Vietnamese officials said the boat was in disputed waters 56km off the coast of China’s Hainan Island and 290km off Vietnam.
China’s Foreign Ministry said the fishermen had “broken the law” by working in Chinese territorial waters 7 nautical miles south of the city of Sanya on Hainan. Vietnamese authorities lost contact with the fishermen on Thursday morning, when a crew member radioed authorities to say men from a Chinese vessel had come aboard the boat. Agencies
