BBC:
When undergraduate Miles Kwan launched a petition demanding answers from Hong Kong authorities after one of the city’s deadliest fires last week, he was arrested for sedition.
The ferocious blaze had ravaged a densely populated housing estate in the northern Tai Po district, killing at least 159 people and displacing thousands – leaving the city with its biggest challenge since 2019, when widespread protests broke out after China tried to tighten control over the territory.
Worried that public anger will once again explode into massive protests, the pro-Beijing authorities had warned, repeatedly, against attempts to “exploit” the fire to “endanger national security”.
Kwan would end up being just one of several people detained under Hong Kong’s controversial national security law, after they called for accountability from the government.
To some, the decision was “baffling”. To others, it was simply Beijing’s playbook, replicated.
