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.
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