Ex-Bar chair flees city after police probe

Hong Kong Bar Association’s former chairman fled the city hours after being questioned by police under a national security law that carries a maximum penality of life imprisonment. 

Paul Harris boarded a flight to the U.K. via Turkey on Tuesday, according to Wen Wei Po which is owned by Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong. The outlet published a video of the British citizen at the airport ignoring reporters’ questions.

Harris confirmed to Reuters that he has left Hong Kong. 

Police had probed Harris on Tuesday in relation to Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor, the non-governmental organization he founded in 1995 before the city’s handover.

The veteran human rights lawyer, who is fluent in Cantonese, was branded an “anti-China politician” by Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong last April after he criticized the sentencing of some 10 pro-democracy figures for participating in two unauthorized assemblies in August 2019.

After Harris stepped down as Bar Association leader in January, state media Global Times said he’d used his tenure to “spread distorted remarks, to defend lawbreakers, to exculpate the violence, and to exert pressure on the judiciary.”

“Harris repeatedly ranted to amend the national security law for Hong Kong, challenging the authority of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress,” it added.

A representative from the Bar Association couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. Hong Kong police didn’t reply to an emailed request for a response.

Hong Kong’s national security police have arrested some 160 people, including at least two foreign passport holders, mostly over crimes relating to their public statements, positions and other political activities. Beijing imposed the law barring subversion, secession, colluding with foreign forces and terrorist activities in Hong Kong in June 2020 in the wake of the previous year’s anti-government protests.