Hong Kong police arrest and search several people near scene of 2021 knife attack on police officer

Hong Kong police arrested and searched several people, including a dentist arrested earlier for alleged sedition, after they briefly remained silent on a busy street near where a police officer was stabbed in 2021 by an attacker ” lone wolf “.

Dentist Lee Ying-chi appeared outside the Sogo department store in Causeway Bay with three friends, some of whom were dressed in black, around 10 p.m. Monday, to mark the 27th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule.

On July 1, three years ago, as Hong Kong celebrated the 24th anniversary of the handover, a 50-year-old man attacked a police officer from behind with a knife before stabbing himself twice in the chest.

But Lee denied that she and her friends had mourned the attacker when police stopped and searched some of them at a nearby bus stop about 15 minutes later.

“The police asked me if I was mourning or observing silence, I said no,” she said. “They said the videos taken by online media were all evidence.”

Asked what she was doing outside the department store, Lee replied, “Well, that’s what you think,” and declined to say more.

Separately, another woman who was part of the same group as Lee was stopped and searched by at least five plainclothes officers at Causeway Bay MTR station.

She was released after officers checked her ID.

“I have no qualms, I did nothing and I said nothing,” she said, raising her arms during the search.

Another woman dressed in black was seen separately bowing toward the department store, but left quickly afterward.

In the 2021 attack, the officer suffered a 10cm deep wound in his back and a punctured lung. The attacker then turned the gun on himself. He was rushed to hospital but was later pronounced dead.

Lee, a member of the League of Social Democrats, was arrested in late May on suspicion of sedition under the National Security Preservation Ordinance, the city’s internal security law enacted in March.

She and five others, including detained activist Chow Hang-tung, allegedly published seditious materials related to the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown with the aim of inciting hatred against local and central governments.