The Hong Kong Fire: A Crisis in the National Security Era
The authorities quickly arrested critics demanding accountability, signaling an expansive use of the security law to silence dissent over nonpolitical tragedies.
Hong Kong’s deadliest fire in decades had barely been extinguished when the city’s authorities began working to contain something else: public anger at the government.
National security police have arrested at least two people for demanding more government accountability in the blaze that engulfed seven apartment towers and killed at least 159 people, with another 31 people unaccounted for on Wednesday.
One of the people arrested was Kenneth Cheung, a former elected district official who posted criticism on Facebook of the authorities’ response to the fire, which started last Wednesday and lasted more than 24 hours. He was accused of inciting hatred against the government online. The other was Miles Kwan, a 24-year-old university student who handed out fliers near the fire site calling for an independent probe into the disaster. The police declined to comment on their arrests.
