Leading Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigner Martin Lee (李柱銘) said yesterday he was the target of an assassination plot during elections in the city last year.
The veteran activist, who founded the city’s Democratic Party, said two men had been arrested over the plot, which he said was foiled by police in August last year. The men were expected to stand trial in Hong Kong “soon,” he said.
Police had arrested an alleged hitman from China and a Hong Kong accomplice and seized a pistol and ammunition, the South China Morning Post reported.
A police spokesman was not available for comment.
“I was never afraid because, as a Catholic, death to me is just like pushing the door open to another life,” Lee told reporters after a meeting with US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Lee said he had been asked by police not to reveal the information, but had confirmed the story when contacted by a reporter this week.
The 70-year-old, who stepped down as a legislator last July, said he did not know who was behind the plot, but said the public exposure of the story could provide a warning.
“I hope the publication of the story will send a certain message to [whoever is behind the plot] that the police will still be trying to get to him or her,” he said, without elaborating.
The plot was uncovered during last year’s Legislative Council elections, one of the limited voting opportunities in the city.
Universal suffrage was promised to Hong Kong when it was handed back to China by colonial power Britain in 1997, but no timetable was set and democrats remain frustrated at the slow pace of constitutional reform.
Lee has also been at the forefront of the campaign to remember and vindicate pro-democracy activists who led a six-week protest in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989.
The 20th anniversary of the crackdown on the protests — which left hundreds, possibly thousands, dead across the Chinese capital — will be marked on Thursday in Hong Kong with a candlelight vigil expected to draw tens of thousands.
Lee told the Post that he did not think the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), of which he has been a vocal critic, was linked to the plot to kill him.
“They are more keen to use character assassination,” said the lawyer, who is banned from China.
Hong Kong, which has a unique legal system from China, has an outspoken and vibrant political culture, but violence against politicians is rare.
In 2006, current Democratic Party Chairman Albert Ho (何俊仁) was attacked in a fast food restaurant by a gang wielding baseball bats, although it is not known if the attack was linked to his political activities. Other leading democrats have received death threats.
Pelosi, who has been a vocal critic of China’s rights record in the past, was heading a US delegation visiting China for meetings on the nation’s climate change agenda.
Lee said he had told Pelosi he was “extremely worried” about the slow pace of political reform in Hong Kong.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to