BRUSSELS:\u00a0The European Union on Saturday (Aug 2) condemned Macau’s\u00a0arrest\u00a0of\u00a0former\u00a0pro-democracy\u00a0lawmaker\u00a0Au Kam-san, saying it only heightened concerns about the “erosion of political pluralism” in the Chinese territory.<\/p>\n
Au is the first person to be arrested under the city’s national security law.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Authorities alleged on Thursday that the 68-year-old primary school teacher had ties to foreign groups endangering China.<\/p>\n
“This development adds to the existing concerns about the ongoing erosion of political pluralism and freedom of speech in the\u00a0Macao\u00a0Special Administrative Region,” said European Union spokesperson Anitta Hipper in a statement.<\/p>\n
“The\u00a0EU\u00a0recalls that the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms is a central element of the\u00a0Macao\u00a0Basic Law and ‘one country, two systems’,” set up in the\u00a0former\u00a0Portuguese colony.<\/p>\n
The territory near Hong Kong, known for its casinos, has retained its own legal system since China took it back from Portugal in 1999.<\/p>\n
The security law, which restricts political activity,\u00a0was passed in 2009 but broadened in 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Au, a legislator up to 2021, has campaigned on social welfare, corruption and electoral reform.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BRUSSELS:\u00a0The European Union on Saturday (Aug 2) condemned Macau’s\u00a0arrest\u00a0of\u00a0former\u00a0pro-democracy\u00a0lawmaker\u00a0Au Kam-san, saying it only heightened concerns about the “erosion…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[1395,31,2000,299,5187,1699,98134,114182],"class_list":{"0":"post-313061","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-china","9":"tag-democracy","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-union","14":"tag-macau","15":"tag-national-security-law"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114961676555562753","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}