HK protest organizer under probe

Hong Kong's police chief revealed that the police are looking into possible violations of the National Security Law by the Civil Human Rights Front, a prominent organizer behind an array of illegal assemblies amid the city's 2019 social unrest, while the alliance is contemplating folding.

The police have been collecting relevant evidence and will take action against the alliance at any time, police commissioner Raymond Siu Chak-yee said in an interview with Hong Kong-based Chinese language newspaper Ta Kung Pao.

The information came after some local media earlier reported that Civil Human Rights Front will meet to discuss its disbandment on Friday.

The alliance, established in 2002 and comprising dozens of member groups, had been a major holder of public rallies.

Some of the unauthorized rallies that it organized in 2019 turned into riots with rampant violence and vandalism.

Some of its member groups, including the recently disbanded Hong Kong Professional Teachers' Union, the city's former largest teachers' organization, announced their withdrawal from the alliance earlier this year.

Facing the concern that the alliance's criminal evidence would be destroyed after its disbandment, Siu said that the police have already deployed manpower to collect evidence in advance.

He warned "anyone who breaks the law had better not think they can make their getaway."

Some leaders of the alliance have been imprisoned for their roles in the city's illegal assemblies, but the police will not rule out the possibility of going after its key members, Siu added.

Stepping down from their roles in the front will not absolve them of their crimes, he stressed, pledging the police's determination to get to the bottom of the cases.

In addition to holding some unlawful assemblies, Civil Human Rights Front during the 2019 social unrest sent letters to consulates generals of more than 60 countries and regions in Hong Kong, urging them to issue travel alerts against the city and press the SAR government to respond to the demands of the protesters.

In the meantime, Chief Secretary for Administration John Lee Ka-chiu, in an interview with Hong Kong China News Agency published on Friday, expressed his confidence in the city after it gets threats to national security and obstacles for governing out of the way by implementing the security law and improving its electoral system.

Lee, also the chairperson of the Candidate Eligibility Review Committee, said the reviewing work of the eligibility of candidates for the upcoming Election Committee is progressing well, adding that it will consider the candidates' words and deeds to decide whether they are "genuine patriots".