Australian woman found guilty of triple murder with toxic mushrooms
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HKFP
9 hours ago
- HKFP
Macau ex-lawmaker arrested in city's first nat. security law action
A former Macau pro-democracy lawmaker became the first person to be arrested under the city's national security law, with authorities alleging on Thursday that he had ties to foreign groups endangering China. The Chinese casino hub, which has its own legal system largely based on Portuguese law, enacted national security legislation in 2009 and widened its powers in 2023. Macau's judicial police said a 68-year-old local man surnamed Au was arrested and handed over to public prosecutors on suspicion of 'establishing connections… outside Macau to commit acts endangering national security'. Local media identified the man as Au Kam San, a primary school teacher who became one of Macau's longest-serving pro-democracy legislators before deciding not to seek re-election in 2021. The man allegedly provided 'a large amount of false and seditious information to an anti-China group' for public exhibitions online and abroad since 2022, and 'stirred up hatred' against the Macau and Beijing governments. He is also accused of spreading false information to various groups, which allegedly disrupted the city's 2024 leadership election and caused foreign countries to take hostile action against Macau, police said in a statement, without naming the groups. A stalwart of Macau's tiny opposition camp, Au spent years campaigning on issues such as social welfare, corruption and electoral reform. Online news platform All About Macau reported that judicial police took away the ex-lawmaker and his wife Virginia Cheang on Wednesday. Cheang told the outlet outside the public prosecution office on Thursday that she was listed as a witness and that she did not know why her husband was detained. AFP was unable to reach Au for comment. Chill on dissent The former Portuguese colony reverted to Chinese rule in 1999 via a 'One Country, Two Systems' framework that promised a high degree of autonomy and rights protections. For years it was regarded by Beijing as a poster child in contrast with neighbouring Hong Kong, which often saw boisterous protests. The high-water mark of Macau activism came in 2014 when some 200,000 people rallied to oppose granting perks to retired government officials, an event that Au helped to organise. One pro-establishment Macau lawmaker told a newspaper in 2020 that the city was threat-free, as shown by the fact that the 'national security law had never been used… in 11 years'. But when Beijing cracked down on Hong Kong after months of huge and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests in 2019, similar curbs were extended to Macau. The casino hub expanded the scope of national security laws in May 2023, which officials said was meant to step up prevention of foreign interference. Former top judge Sam Hou Fai became Macau's leader in December after a one-horse race. City officials this month disqualified 12 candidates from the legislative elections set for September, saying they did not uphold Macau's mini-constitution or pledge allegiance to the city. The dozen hopefuls include sitting lawmaker Ron Lam, who said last week that the grounds for barring him were 'ridiculous'.
South China Morning Post
13 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Hong Kong authorities urged to reopen case into cabby who died in police custody
The daughters of a taxi driver who died after being put in a headlock during an arrest in 2012 have called on Hong Kong authorities to bring the police officer involved to justice after an inquest concluded that the cabby was killed unlawfully. A jury of two men and three women on Thursday returned the same rare verdict a separate panel had reached when the decade-old case regarding Chan Fai-wong's death was first examined at the Coroner's Court in 2018. Chan died from complications arising from a cervical vertebra dislocation in December 2012, a month after Constable Lam Wai-wing pulled him into a police vehicle while wrapping his arm around the cabby's neck. The officer maintained he immediately released his arm the moment it came into contact with the driver's neck. The High Court in 2022 quashed a five-member jury's 3-2 verdict of unlawful killing in the first inquest after finding the presiding coroner had oversimplified her instructions to the jurors to the effect of usurping their role in determining the facts of the case. The new jury on Thursday reached the same conclusion, but by a wider margin of 4-1, after closed-door deliberations began the previous day. Jurors found that Chan died of bronchopneumonia he had contracted as a complication of the neck injury inflicted by police. 'This incident shows that police misconduct can threaten the lives of arrested people,' the jury said.
RTHK
3 days ago
- RTHK
India says gunmen behind Kashmir mass slaughter killed
India says gunmen behind Kashmir mass slaughter killed The Kashmir mass killings sparked off a security clampdown in Srinagar. File photo: Reuters Indian security forces have killed three gunmen who were involved in an attack on Hindu tourists in Indian Kashmir, home minister Amit Shah said on Tuesday. The heavily-armed men were killed in a military operation on Monday, more than three months after 26 people were gunned down in a popular resort town of Indian Kashmir on April 22. "I want to tell the parliament [that] those who attacked in Baisaran were three terrorists and all three have been killed," he said. Shah identified two of the three killed as members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a UN-designated terrorist group based in Pakistan. "Indian security agencies have detailed evidence of their involvement in the attack," he said in a speech in the lower house of parliament. Monday's operation took place in the mountains of Dachigam, around 30 kilometres from the disputed region's main city of Srinagar, the army said in a statement. The attack in April saw gunmen burst out of forests near Pahalgam and rake crowds of visitors with automatic weapons. All those killed were listed as residents of India except one man from Nepal. India accused Pakistan of backing the attackers, a charge Islamabad denied, sparking an intense four-day conflict between the nuclear-armed rivals in May that killed more than 70 people on both sides. Muslim-majority Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence from British rule in 1947, and the neighbours – who both claim the region in full – have fought two wars and several conflicts over its control. (AFP)
