Hong Kong’s national security police say they have arrested two people for perverting the course of justice, including one who had been released on bail after being detained earlier on suspicion of conspiracy to forgery and publishing “seditious” posts.
A 64-year-old woman and a 30-year-old man were arrested in Hung Hom and Cheung Sha Wan respectively on Wednesday, police said in a statement.
The woman had been arrested on Tuesday last week along with five men, suspected of forging signatures on documents. She was also accused of repeatedly publishing posts with “seditious intention” on social media platforms, in contravention of the colonial-era sedition law.
“After being released on bail, the woman allegedly attempted to pervert the course of justice by attempting to influence other defendants of the ‘conspiracy to forgery’ case through the 30-year-old man,” the statement read.
Police searched the homes of the two people arrested on Wednesday and seized some electronic communication devices.
The woman is “suspected of endangering national security by repeatedly publishing posts with seditious intention on social media platforms which brought into hatred against the Central Authorities and the HKSAR Government, advocated Hong Kong independence and incited the use of violence,” the statement said.
Conspiracy to forgery
A later police statement said the 64-year-old woman has been charged with perverting the course of public justice and conspiracy to forgery. In the “conspiracy to forgery” case, three men have also been charged, it said.
The case will be mentioned at the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts on Thursday.
Sedition is not covered by the Beijing-imposed national security law, which targets secession, subversion, collusion with foreign forces and terrorist acts and mandates up to life imprisonment. Those convicted under the sedition law – last amended in the 1970s when Hong Kong was still a British colony – face a maximum penalty of two years in prison.
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