Hong Kong: A Hong Kong lawmaker was arrested Wednesday for “desecrating” the Chinese and Hong Kong flags by turning them upside down in parliament, in charges he said were designed to suppress anti-Beijing sentiment.
Cheng Chung-tai upended small China and Hong Kong flags that some pro-Beijing legislators had displayed on their desks in the legislative assembly last October.
The incident happened in a feisty session where two pro-independence lawmakers were barred from taking up their seats in a row over the oath-taking ceremony.
Under Hong Kong law, it is an offense to desecrate national and regional flags by “publicly and wilfully burning, mutilating, scrawling on, defiling or trampling on them.”
“The clear and obvious goal is to eliminate dissent” before the city’s newly elected pro-Beijing leader Carrie Lam takes office in July, Cheng told reporters after he was bailed.
He said that Hong Kong was facing a “massive purge” against pro-democracy voices.
The city was handed back to China by colonial ruler Britain in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” formula.
But there are concerns China is interfering in the semi-autonomous city, eroding its freedoms and way of life.
Some activists have angered Beijing by calling for greater autonomy or even independence for Hong Kong, with some jailed or awaiting trial over anti-China clashes.
A protester was jailed for more than four years Monday for rioting and arson during a 2016 protest known as the Fishball Revolution, where police fired warning shots and demonstrators hurled bricks torn up from pavements.
Three other activists had been jailed for three years on riot charges for their role in the same protest.
Other prominent activists were arrested late last month over 2014’s Umbrella Movement, which saw tens of thousands occupy the city’s streets for 79 days in an unsuccessful campaign for election reform.
Hong Kong lawmaker charged for upending Chinese flag
Hong Kong lawmaker charged for upending Chinese flag
UN arrives in east DR Congo town to prepare ceasefire mission
- Eastern DRC has been ravaged by three decades of conflict and faces renewed violence
KINSHASA: A team of UN peacekeepers arrived in the flashpoint eastern Democratic Republic of Congo town of Uvira to prepare the deployment of a ceasefire?monitoring mission, the force said Tuesday.
Eastern DRC has been ravaged by three decades of conflict and faces renewed violence following the 2021 resurgence of the M23 armed group, backed by Rwanda and its army.
The M23 seized large swathes of territory in the east and launched an offensive in December on Uvira, a strategic town in South Kivu province near the border with Burundi.
The assault drew condemnation from the United States, which has mediated a fragile peace deal between the DRC and Rwanda.
That agreement provided for the UN’s DRC peacekeeping mission MONUSCO to carry out a field-monitoring operation with a view to implementing a permanent ceasefire.
On Tuesday, MONUSCO and the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region, a grouping of surrounding countries, said in a statement they had deployed a joint exploratory and preliminary assessment mission to Uvira.
Scheduled to run until Friday, the mission focuses on assessing access, security, logistics and engagement needs, MONUSCO said.
The statement called the mission “an essential step toward deploying the future joint ceasefire?monitoring mechanism.”
In January, the M23 withdrew its last troops from Uvira, claiming it was responding to a US request. The Congolese army said it had retaken control of the town.
