Hold Off On Arrests For Now, Says Alvin Yeung

The leader of the Civic Party, Alvin Yeung, says the government mustn’t arrest those involved in recent protests, at least until it completes an independent inquiry into events around its attempts to amend the city’s extradition laws.

The lawmaker said establishing an independent investigation is needed to ease tensions in society.

Yeung said a lot of people had been arrested, charged and sentenced after the 2014 civil disobedience movement and clashes in Mong Kok in 2016, but that had not brought peace to the city.

“In order to solve this political issue, we have to deal with it in a political way. So, you cannot use the legal tool to resolve this political problem,” he told RTHK’s Frances Sit.

“A lot of young men and women are now under fear that they could get arrested any time of the day. Is that the intention of the government?”

He said the government should start an initial independent inquiry to investigate into all the political matters surrounding the anti-extradition bill protests. And he said no legal action should be taken until the inquiry has finished its work.

Yeung also said there are precedents for the government to exonerate people accused of crimes without harming the rule of law.

He said this happened when the ICAC was first set up, when then-governor Murray MacLehose granted a partial amnesty for public servants accused of graft before 1977. He said this also happened in the late 1990s, when then-Secretary for Justice Elsie Leung decided against prosecuting newspaper owner Sally Aw Sian.