Hong Kong: arrest of Elizabeth Tang, eminent trade union leader

Stanley Jail in Hong Kong.

AFP - TENGKU BAHAR

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

A well-known Hong Kong trade unionist was arrested on Thursday (March 9th) under National Security law while visiting her jailed husband, Lee Cheuk-yan, a former MP and pro-democracy opposition stalwart.

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With our correspondent in Hong Kong,

Florence de Changy

Video of the arrest of former labor leader Elizabeth Tang was released on Thursday afternoon by one of Hong Kong's pro-Beijing propaganda newspapers, the Wen Wei Po. The scene takes place

outside

 the Stanley high security prison, where most pro-democracy activists are currently incarcerated.

We see the 65-year-old activist, in a black T-shirt and sleeveless down jacket, being surrounded by several plainclothes police officers who escort her on a few meters of sidewalk and put her in an unmarked gray van.

Elizabeth Tang doesn't resist, but looks shocked.

Collusion with foreign forces

She had come to visit her husband, former MP

Lee Cheuk-yan

, 66, a stalwart of the pro-democracy opposition, behind bars since September 2021. Together they founded the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions in 1990.

The National Security Department of the police confirmed late Thursday evening the arrest of Elizabeth Tang for "

collusion with foreign forces

".

According to the local press, this accusation could be linked to foreign funding received by a center she directed and which was dissolved in 2021.

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  • hong kong

  • China

  • Unions

  • Human rights