Amnesty International throws in the towel and announces that it will close its Hong Kong offices.

The decision was due to the threat posed to personnel by the National Security Act that Beijing imposed on the former British colony in late June 2020.

"This grudging decision was guided by Hong Kong's national security law - said Anjhula Mya Singh Bais, chairman of the board of Amnesty - which made it impossible for human rights organizations in the city to work. freely and without fear of serious government reprisals ".

Amnesty International has two offices in Hong Kong, one local dedicated to the human rights situation in the former British colony and the other regional which carries out its research activities in East and South East Asia, and in the Pacific.

In the note, Amnesty added that the local office will be closed on October 31 and that the regional office will be moved "by the end of 2021".

The withdrawal of the organization is the latest case in a process that has become irreversible and linked to the ongoing squeeze on rights and freedoms in the city and which, in recent months, has led, for example, to the dissolution of the Hong Kong Alliance, the group who for 30 years had been involved in organizing the vigil of June 4 in memory of the violent repression in Beijing of the student protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Its former leaders are largely in detention for various reasons, for participation in the demonstrations "illegal" masses of 2019 and the allegations of violating the national security law.

(Unioneonline / vl)

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