Au Kam San accused by police of being in touch with an unnamed ‘anti-China organisation overseas’ since 2022.
A number one democrat from Macau has been arrested for collusion with overseas forces to hazard nationwide safety, police stated, because the semi-autonomous area additional tightens its nationwide safety legal guidelines to align with these of China.
Macau’s police stated in a press release on Thursday that Au Kam San had been taken from his residence for investigation on Wednesday.
The previous Portuguese colony reverted to Chinese language rule in 1999 through a “One Nation, Two Techniques” framework that promised a excessive diploma of autonomy and rights protections.
Au, 68, is considered one of Macau’s most distinguished democratic campaigners who served for almost twenty years as a lawmaker within the former Portuguese colony. He served in Macau’s legislature for twenty years earlier than stepping down in 2021.
The police assertion didn’t give Au’s full title, however native media shops reported that the person arrested was the campaigner, and Au’s spouse arrived on the prosecution’s workplace on Thursday and was listed as a “witness”, on-line outlet All About Macau stated.
“The resident has allegedly been in touch with an anti-China organisation overseas since 2022, offering the group with massive quantities of false and seditious info, for public exhibitions abroad and on-line,” the police assertion added.
The police didn’t say which overseas entity Au was in touch with, however stated he had additionally sought to incite hatred in opposition to Beijing, disrupt a 2024 election for Macau’s chief and “provoke hostile actions by overseas international locations in opposition to Macau”.
Au and his spouse couldn’t be reached for remark.
Via the years, Au had championed democratic reforms and helped foster civil society initiatives within the tiny playing hub that returned from Portuguese to Chinese language rule in 1999 – two years after the nearby former British colony of Hong Kong was handed again to China.
In contrast to Hong Kong, which has seen large social actions problem Chinese language Communist Occasion rule in 2014 and 2019, the democratic opposition within the China-ruled former Portuguese colony has at all times existed on the fringes amid tight Chinese language management.
Via the years, Au had led protests and railed in opposition to opaque governance and rising social inequalities, whilst playing revenues exploded within the metropolis, which is residence to about 700,000 individuals.
Au was one of many founders of a number of pro-democracy teams, together with the New Macau Affiliation, and had labored as a schoolteacher.
The arrest comes as authorities in neighbouring Hong Kong proceed to crack down on dissent utilizing two units of highly effective nationwide safety legal guidelines which were leveraged to jail activists, shutter media shops and civil society teams.
Whereas Hong Kong’s democrats had actively challenged Beijing’s makes an attempt to ratchet up management of town since its return to Chinese language rule, Macau’s authorities has confronted far much less public scrutiny, with authorities capable of enact a sweeping set of nationwide safety legal guidelines as early as 2009.
This regulation was amended in 2023 to carry Macau in step with related legal guidelines in Hong Kong and China and to bolster the prevention of overseas interference.
