EU, US CRITICISM
The Chinese foreign ministry office said on Thursday that Chow “continuously published posts with seditious intent on social media, trying to provoke hatred of the public towards the central government and the Hong Kong government”.
The spokesperson charged unnamed “external forces” with “making all sorts of efforts to complain for and support anti-China and anti-Hong Kong elements”.
“Their despicable attempts are disgraceful,” they said in a statement.
A European Union spokesperson on Wednesday said the arrests “seem to confirm the EU’s concerns about the new law and its effect on the rights and freedoms of the people of Hong Kong”.
On Thursday, the United States condemned the arrests “under Hong Kong’s repressive new national security law”.
“We reiterate our concern that the law’s overly broad and vaguely defined provisions appear to further criminalise the exercise of freedom of expression and silence criticism of the government,” a US State Department spokesperson said.
Passed by an opposition-free legislature, Article 23 became Hong Kong’s second national security law, following a Beijing-imposed security law that came into effect in 2020.
The US, the EU, Japan and Britain have been among Article 23’s strongest critics.
China’s statement on foreign interference was not connected to the national security trial in which 14 Hong Kong democracy campaigners were found guilty of subversion on Thursday.
