An elderly Hong Kong man has been released on police bail after he was arrested on China’s National Day for allegedly acting with seditious intent.
Police confirmed with HKFP on Thursday that an 89-year-old man was apprehended on October 1 for a sedition offence under the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, more commonly known as Article 23. The force did not say what led to the arrest.
The man has been granted bail by the police and will need to report back to the force in mid-November. He has not yet been formally charged.
Several online media outlets captured the elderly man being taken away by police in the Causeway Bay MTR station last Wednesday, when the city marked the 76th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
Online footage showed plainclothes police officers escorting the man into a staff-only corridor at the MTR station at around 3pm, with several tactical unit officers guarding the entrance. He was then led outside the station and brought onto a police van.
Local media reported that the man arrested was an activist surnamed Ng. He is known for his participation in a pro-democracy group that was founded during the 2014 Umbrella Movement.
According to previous reports, Ng has continued protesting on the street in recent years, standing alone and holding up handwritten signs. He showed up in Causeway Bay on June 4 last year with a sign showing a timeline of pro-democracy movements in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The other sign he held called on people to commemorate the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown.
See also: HKFP Lens: Hong Kong runs red with patriotism on China’s 76th National Day
Sedition is not covered by the 2020 Beijing-imposed national security law, which targets secession, subversion, collusion with foreign forces, and terrorist acts and mandates up to life imprisonment.
It was originally outlawed under the colonial-era Crimes Ordinance, with a maximum penalty of two years in prison. Authorities raised the penalty to seven years imprisonment when sedition was integrated into Article 23, which passed in March 2023.
