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Hong Kong Police will launch a counter-terrorism reporting hotline, which comes with rewards for suggestions, on Wednesday, resulting in considerations that it’s going to incentivize paranoia and spying on fellow residents.
In a press launch issued on Tuesday, police mentioned the hotline — 6366-6999 — is geared toward encouraging the general public to supply intelligence about terrorism or violence-related crimes.
The power launched an anti-violence hotline for the general public to supply data to help within the prevention and detection of crimes following the social unrest in 2019, throughout which police cracked down on a number of plots of assault regarding firearms and explosives.
“Since then the hotline has addressed many experiences from enthusiastic residents,” the discharge learn.
The power additionally famous that whereas Hong Kong’s regulation and order “has usually regained its stability” after Beijing imposed the Nationwide Safety Regulation in 2020, “the actions of native extremists have turned underground and develop into extra covert.”
Police arrested quite a few individuals in two separate instances final month for allegedly disseminating violent remarks on-line, trying to make deadly weapons and plotting violent assaults. Quite a lot of weapons, giant batches of apparatus and uncooked supplies for manufacturing explosives have been additionally seized throughout the operations, in line with authorities.
“All these illustrate that native extremists are hidden locally they usually stay a possible risk to the safety in Hong Kong,” the discharge learn.
As such, police mentioned they’ve upgraded its anti-violence hotline to a counter-terrorism reporting hotline, managed by the Inter-departmental Counter-Terrorism Unit.
“The brand new hotline quantity is less complicated to recollect, and its first stage will embody SMS and WeChat reporting options,” the power mentioned.
The discharge went on to say that the hotline’s operations could be reviewed occasionally and authorities would broaden the variety of reporting channels as and when essential to additional facilitate reporting by the general public.
Other than violent acts, the general public may additionally report suspected terrorism-related actions round them, specifically extremist plots, by way of this upgraded hotline, police mentioned.
“Reporting such acts immediately will stop and fight extremist actions extra successfully,” they added.
With the intention to encourage the general public to make experiences, police are planning to pay rewards to those that present dependable terrorism-related data.
“Whatever the means for reporting, if the knowledge offered by the general public is of essential help to detection of terrorism-related crimes, [the unit] will, upon completion of prosecution of offences, assess and decide the reward quantities beneath a stringent mechanism,” the power mentioned.
Additionally they mentioned that information collected shall be strictly handled in accordance with the Private Information (Privateness) Ordinance, and won’t be offered to 3rd events.
Some netizens expressed considerations in regards to the affect of a regulation that would reward spying on one’s neighbors.
“We now have to watch out,” mentioned a person of LIHKG, a Reddit-style discussion board in Hong Kong, which is understood for its pro-democracy stance.
“Do [authorities] really feel like there aren’t sufficient individuals emigrating from Hong Kong,” requested one other.
Police additionally launched a reporting hotline devoted to nationwide safety regulation offenses in 2020.
In its first yr of operation, the hotline acquired a median of 550 messages a day over violations of the regulation, which critics say curtails freedom of speech.
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