Both current and former employees of the Stand News website were among those arrested.

The Stand News website has posted a video about Facebook by a police officer at the home of one of the site’s editors.

More than 200 officers were sent to search the site office in the Kwun Tong District. In a statement, police said they should confiscate “relevant journalistic material”.

Editors, pop stars and politicians

Stand News editors Patrick Lam and Ronson Chan were among those arrested. In addition to his work at Stand News, Chan is also the chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists Association.

Chan was not arrested, but he was taken for questioning by police, according to BBC.

On Tuesday night, Chan hosted the annual dinner at the Hong Kong Journalists Association.

On Facebook, local pop star Denise Ho, who previously sat on the website’s board, wrote that she too had been arrested. He is also a Canadian citizen.

Among those arrested were lawyer and former politician Margaret Ng and former Stand News editor-in-chief Chung Pui-kuen, according to local media.

Those arrested were three men and three women, and aged 34 to 73 years, wrote BBC.

Tighten

Hong Kong authorities have cracked down on the democracy movement in the region after the national security law came into effect. China introduced the law last year, following months of massive demonstrations of democracy in Hong Kong in 2019.

Among other things, former media mogul and activist Jimmy Lai was also indicted this week for distributing rebel content. He was also charged with violating the National Security Act, and convicted of participating in illegal demonstrations.

The Lais Apple Daily newspaper shut down in June after authorities intervened, first in the form of police raids in which several leaders were arrested and then by freezing the newspaper’s funds.

A large number of opposition figures have been imprisoned or fled abroad.

– Serious escalation

The Hong Kong committee in Norway calls the arrest one escalation of very serious violations of some of the remaining civil and political rights in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Committee in Norway wrote in a press release to NRK.

– The arrests mark a serious escalation of attacks on the few remaining rights and freedoms in Hong Kong, which were guaranteed by Beijing in 1997, wrote the Hong Kong Committee on Norway.

And refers to Hong Kong’s “constitution”, which was adopted when Hong Kong was transferred from Britain to China in 1997.

The law is to ensure that the promise of one country, two systems, is kept.

– The last remaining aspect of civil society, which separates Hong Kong from mainland China, is now being removed at an alarming rate, the committee continued.

It highlights the removal of the “Shameful Support” monument from the University of Hong Kong and similar monuments after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.