97 arrested for breaching national security law in Hong Kong: police chief

HONG KONG -- The Hong Kong police have arrested 97 people since June 2020 on suspicion of breaching the national security law in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), Commissioner of Police of the HKSAR government Chris Tang Ping-keung said Tuesday.

Those people were suspected of committing the offenses of secession, subversion or collusion with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security, and eight of them were prosecuted, Tang said.

Tang on Tuesday briefed the Legislative Council and the media about the law and order situation in Hong Kong in 2020.

The overall situation has stabilized over the past year, he said.

The number of crimes related to social unrest dropped thanks to the implementation of the national security law since late June last year, Tang said, citing crimes including arson, criminal damage and possession of offensive weapons were down by 25 percent in 2020.

The total number of crimes in Hong Kong rose 6.8 percent year-on-year to 63,232 in 2020 mainly due to over 7,000 more fraud cases reported, Tang said, stressing that the situation improved in the second half as the number of crimes went down.

Besides, some 10,200 people had been arrested for their involvement in social unrest by the end of 2020, with more than 2,400 people prosecuted, Tang said. Legal proceedings of some 940 defendants have completed and 80 percent of them have to bear legal consequences.