Lawyers In New Bid To Visit 12 Detainees

Lawyers representing some of the 12 Hongkongers arrested by Guangdong authorities at sea say they will make another attempt to visit their clients in Shenzhen on Wednesday, after failing to gain access to them on Monday.

The 12 were intercepted and arrested by mainland coastguards in August for alleged illegal entry while reportedly sailing to Taiwan to seek political asylum.

Talking about the issue, a local NPC deputy, Ip Kwok-him, said although mainland laws allow defendants' access to lawyers, authorities have to carefully validate the lawyers' identities to prevent the cases from being "hyped".

Speaking to an RTHK radio programme, Ip added that mainland authorities are likely to begin the legal proceedings against the Hongkongers within the next month or so, and believes they'll only return to the SAR after completing their trials and serving their sentences.

He said that the group were more likely to be prosecuted for crimes involving illegal entry – the sentence for which is one year in prison, and two to seven years behind bars in more serious cases – and the chances of them being prosecuted under the National Security Law is lower.

Also speaking on the same programme was Democratic Party lawmaker James To, who argued that the group originally intended to enter Taiwan, and had no intention of entering the mainland to commit crimes.

To said there had been previous cases in which offenders had been repatriated back to Hong Kong, and he called on the SAR administration to make a similar request for the 12 people.

On Tuesday, Chief Executive Carrie Lam said she could not intervene in the case, saying that the 12 “have to be dealt with according to the mainland laws” but would provide assistance to them.