HONG KONG: Chinese authorities have confirmed the criminal detention of 12 Hong Kongers who were allegedly attempting to travel illegally to Taiwan by boat last month, while the foreign ministry in Beijing labeled the group separatists.
The 12 people, aged 16 to 33, were under “compulsory criminal detention” in accordance with Chinese law for illegally crossing the border, according to a statement Sunday from the public security bureau in Shenzhen, a southern Chinese city. It said they were arrested on Aug. 23.
The statement was the first formal announcement from Chinese authorities that the 12 would likely face criminal charges. Last month authorities confirmed the detention at sea of the 12, some of whom were linked to the anti-government protest movement in the city last year.
The 12 were believed to be traveling to the self-ruled island of Taiwan, a popular choice among protesters who have chosen to leave Hong Kong since the passage of a new national security law in June. Critics say the Hong Kong law is Beijing’s clearest attempt to erase the legal firewall between the semi-autonomous territory and the mainland’s authoritarian Communist Party system.
Beijing foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Sunday on Twitter that the 12 detained were not “democratic activists, but elements attempting to separate #HongKong from China.”
Under Hong Kong’s security law, attempting to separate Hong Kong from China is illegal, as the law outlaws secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces in the city’s internal affairs.
Pro-democracy lawmaker Eddie Chu expressed concern in an interview with public broadcaster RTHK on Monday that the 12 could face more severe charges in the future, which could result in longer prison sentences. They are currently accused of illegally crossing the border and not separatism.
The relatives of the arrested Hong Kongers held a news conference on Saturday calling for the return of their family members to Hong Kong, saying their legal rights were being violated.
The relatives, who wore masks and sunglasses and did not reveal their names, said those arrested should be allowed to meet with lawyers they themselves have hired, not those appointed by Chinese authorities. They also said they should be provided with needed medications and be allowed to call their families.
In a statement released at the news conference, the families said that the Hong Kong government had not yet provided any sort of concrete assistance to the families.
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said last week that the group arrested would have to be dealt with according to Chinese laws if they were arrested for committing an offense in China. She said that the Hong Kong government would try and render assistance.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement Friday that the US is “deeply concerned” over the arrests of the 12 people, whom he called “democracy activists.”
US State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a Twitter post Saturday that the arrest of the 12 is “another sad example of the deterioration of human rights in Hong Kong.”
“Legitimate governments do not need to wall their countries in and prevent their citizens from leaving,” Ortagus wrote.
China confirms it detained 12 Hong Kongers at sea last month
https://arab.news/mkc7v
China confirms it detained 12 Hong Kongers at sea last month
- The 12 were believed to be traveling to the self-ruled island of Taiwan
- First formal announcement from Chinese authorities that the 12 would likely face criminal charges
Afghan returnees in Bamiyan struggle despite new homes
- More than five million Afghans have returned home since September 2023, according to the International Organization for Migration
BAMIYAN, Afghanistan: Sitting in his modest home beneath snow-dusted hills in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan province, Nimatullah Rahesh expressed relief to have found somewhere to “live peacefully” after months of uncertainty.
Rahesh is one of millions of Afghans pushed out of Iran and Pakistan, but despite being given a brand new home in his native country, he and many of his recently returned compatriots are lacking even basic services.
“We no longer have the end-of-month stress about the rent,” he said after getting his house, which was financed by the UN refugee agency on land provided by the Taliban authorities.
Originally from a poor and mountainous district of Bamiyan, Rahesh worked for five years in construction in Iran, where his wife Marzia was a seamstress.
“The Iranians forced us to leave” in 2024 by “refusing to admit our son to school and asking us to pay an impossible sum to extend our documents,” he said.
More than five million Afghans have returned home since September 2023, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), as neighboring Iran and Pakistan stepped up deportations.
The Rahesh family is among 30 to be given a 50-square-meter (540-square-foot) home in Bamiyan, with each household in the nascent community participating in the construction and being paid by UNHCR for their work.
The families, most of whom had lived in Iran, own the building and the land.
“That was crucial for us, because property rights give these people security,” said the UNHCR’s Amaia Lezertua.
Waiting for water
Despite the homes lacking running water and being far from shops, schools or hospitals, new resident Arefa Ibrahimi said she was happy “because this house is mine, even if all the basic facilities aren’t there.”
Ibrahimi, whose four children huddled around the stove in her spartan living room, is one of 10 single mothers living in the new community.
The 45-year-old said she feared ending up on the street after her husband left her.
She showed AFP journalists her two just-finished rooms and an empty hallway with a counter intended to serve as a kitchen.
“But there’s no bathroom,” she said. These new houses have only basic outdoor toilets, too small to add even a simple shower.
Ajay Singh, the UNHCR project manager, said the home design came from the local authorities, and families could build a bathroom themselves.
There is currently no piped water nor wells in the area, which is dubbed “the dry slope” (Jar-e-Khushk).
Ten liters of drinking water bought when a tanker truck passes every three days costs more than in the capital Kabul, residents said.
Fazil Omar Rahmani, the provincial head of the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation Affairs, said there were plans to expand the water supply network.
“But for now these families must secure their own supply,” he said.
Two hours on foot
The plots allocated by the government for the new neighborhood lie far from Bamiyan city, which is home to more than 70,000 people.
The city grabbed international attention in 2001, when the Sunni Pashtun Taliban authorities destroyed two large Buddha statues cherished by the predominantly Shia Hazara community in the region.
Since the Taliban government came back to power in 2021, around 7,000 Afghans have returned to Bamiyan according to Rahmani.
The new project provides housing for 174 of them. At its inauguration, resident Rahesh stood before his new neighbors and addressed their supporters.
“Thank you for the homes, we are grateful, but please don’t forget us for water, a school, clinics, the mobile network,” which is currently nonexistent, he said.
Rahmani, the ministry official, insisted there were plans to build schools and clinics.
“There is a direct order from our supreme leader,” Hibatullah Akhundzada, he said, without specifying when these projects will start.
In the meantime, to get to work at the market, Rahesh must walk for two hours along a rutted dirt road between barren mountains before he can catch a ride.
Only 11 percent of adults found full-time work after returning to Afghanistan, according to an IOM survey.
Ibrahimi, meanwhile, is contending with a four-kilometer (2.5-mile) walk to the nearest school when the winter break ends.
“I will have to wake my children very early, in the cold. I am worried,” she said.
