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HONG KONG: Lawyers representing some of the Hong Kong residents captured by the Chinese coast guard while allegedly trying to flee the financial center by speedboat told AFP on Monday (September 7) that they have been denied access to their customers.
Authorities in mainland China announced that a group of 12 Hong Kong residents were intercepted about 70 kilometers southeast of the city on August 23 while trying to escape by boat and were handed over to police in neighboring Shenzhen.
They have since disappeared from China’s judicial system.
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Neither mainland Chinese nor Hong Kong authorities have publicly confirmed who has been arrested.
But Hong Kong media, including a pro-Beijing newspaper, have identified some of those on board, while relatives of those detained have also come forward.
Some of the people identified as on the speedboat face prosecution for their participation in the protests last year.
One man, Andy Li, was recently arrested under a new security law that Beijing imposed on Hong Kong.
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Another is a dual national with Portuguese and Hong Kong citizenship.
On Monday, two mainland Chinese lawyers told AFP that they had tried to visit their clients and had not been able to visit them after receiving instructions from relatives.
“They said that I cannot prove that the instructions I received came from family members even though I provided my client’s birth certificate issued in Hong Kong,” said Ren Quanniu, a lawyer who traveled nearly 1,500 kilometers from downtown China to Shenzhen.
Ren said he also visited the police officer in charge of the case, who declined to receive legal documents, including a written request for his client Wong Wai-yin to be returned to the jurisdiction of Hong Kong.
He said he later filed a complaint with prosecutors in Shenzhen.
Lu Siwei, another lawyer, said he had a similar experience when he tried to visit his detained client last week.
Both Ren and Lu said that Shenzhen police were treating the case as an “illegal border crossing”, a crime that carries up to a year in jail.
However, Lu said he was informed by the police that some of the detainees may also face the most serious charges of “organizing others to cross the border illegally,” carrying sentences of up to life in prison.
Ren said other attorneys he knew represented those arrested were also denied access.
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The prospect of Hong Kong residents becoming entangled in China’s judicial system was the spark that ignited seven months of huge and often violent protests last year.
The movement began in response to plans to allow extraditions to the mainland and soon morphed into calls for democracy and greater police accountability.
Since then, the authorities have cracked down on the movement, prosecuting thousands of protesters and prominent activists.
In June, Beijing covered Hong Kong with a new security law that broke down the legal firewall between the two.
Under the law, China has claimed jurisdiction for serious crimes against national security and authorized its security officers to operate openly in Hong Kong for the first time.
