On July 1, a 50-year-old man stabbed a police officer in the back and then committed suicide in Hong Kong’s bustling Causeway Bay district. The assailant left a suicide note criticizing the National Security Law (NSL), which was imposed on Hong Kong in June 2020 by the Chinese Communist Party-controlled rubber-stamp legislature in Beijing.
Yesterday (July 26) the NSL branch of the Hong Kong police searched the house of the journalist who filmed the attack, according to a post published on Facebook by the Hong Kong Journalists’ Association (HKJA).
The police allegedly visited the journalist at around 11 p.m. without prior notice. She was taken to a police station, asked to give a statement and to surrender her passport. Later her apartment was searched, the HKJA explained.
The journalist had already cooperated with the police following the July 1 attack. The HKJA had arranged for her to be accompanied by a lawyer during the investigation. The police had stated that it would notify the HKJA before questioning the journalist again, but that did not happen.
After learning about the police’s action, on July 27 the HKJA sent a lawyer to Chai Wan police station, where the journalist was being questioned.
“The HKJA demands that the police immediately explain whether she is ‘assisting in the investigation’, and if so, why her apartment was searched and her passport was confiscated,” the HKJA wrote.
“Government officials have repeatedly stated that the ‘National Security Law’ would only affect ‘a small number of people’”, the post continues. “But the HKJA reiterates that the present actions by the National Security branch of the police are contrary to government officials’ [statements]. Because all journalists in Hong Kong have been not only ‘affected’, but also ‘threatened’.”
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