3 days ago
Ex-district councillor's candle shop inspected by Hong Kong customs officers on eve of Tiananmen anniversary
Hong Kong customs officers inspected ex-district councillor Katrina Chan's incense shop for hours on the eve of the Tiananmen crackdown anniversary, accusing her of failing to comply with product safety regulations.
Two plainclothes officers, who later introduced themselves as Customs and Excise Department (C&ED) personnel, visited Chan's shop, Heung Together, in Dragon Centre in Sham Shui Po with three other customs officers on Tuesday evening.
The plainclothes officers bought products from the shop twice within the span of 20 minutes on Tuesday evening.
They told her she was suspected of violating the Consumer Goods Safety Regulation because she had failed to include bilingual safety labels on products.
Inspections of the products lasted more than four hours, from 7.30pm to around 11.40pm, after the mall had already closed.
The officers photographed and seized some of the products Chan was selling but did not arrest her.
Candles for $6.4
Chan, who served as Tsuen Wan district councillor from 2019 to 2021, sold soy wax candles for '$6.4' on Tuesday, one day before June 4, the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown.
A customs officer at the scene said that Tuesday's operation was part of a routine inspection. When asked if the team had inspected other shops at Dragon Centre on the same day, he said he could not reveal operational details.
At least five other plainclothes officers, who a customs officer said were not part of the department's team, stood in the vicinity of the shop, regularly rotating positions.
Just before midnight, two of the officers identified themselves as police officers to Chan, saying they were at the scene to observe the customs officers and that they did not know the other unidentified men in plainclothes.
Throughout the inspections, Chan said the presence of the unidentified men left her feeling uneasy.
When reporters on the scene began recording the exchange between Chan and the two police officers, the officers asked them to stop, saying it was a 'private conversation.'
HKFP has reached out to the C&ED and the police force for comment.
Chan said last month that she was being 'silenced' after being ousted from her job and a theatre production she was part of.
In May last year, she and five others were arrested under the city's homegrown security law, also known as Article 23. Their arrests were linked to a Facebook page called 'Chow Hang-tung Club,' named after the activist who was the vice chairperson of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China.
The Alliance once organised the city's annual Tiananmen vigils until Hong Kong police banned the Tiananmen vigil gathering at Victoria Park for the first time in 2020, citing Covid-19 restrictions.
The ban was imposed again in 2021, nearly a year after a national security law imposed by Beijing came into effect.
The Tiananmen crackdown occurred on June 4, 1989, ending months of student-led demonstrations in China. It is estimated that hundreds, perhaps thousands, died when the People's Liberation Army cracked down on protesters in Beijing.
