HONG KONG, Sept 20 (Reuters) – Hong Kong police arrested on Monday three members of a pro-democracy student group, accusing them of a “conspiracy to incite subversion” including by helping deliver snacks to prisoners with the aim of recruiting followers. Hong Kong police have arrested more than 100 people under a national security law that Beijing imposed on the former British colony in June last year that critics say erodes the freedoms promised when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997. Beijing and the city’s government say the law is necessary to safeguard Hong Kong’s prosperity and guard against outside interference. Wall-fare, a prisoners’ rights group that provided supplies for prisoners and connected them with pen-pals, disbanded last week after Hong Kong Security Chief Chris Tang had said inmates uses items including sweets to recruit followers inside prison and endanger national security. The national security law punishes what China considers secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces with up to life in prison.
