ITV News published this video item, entitled “Fleeing Hong Kong activists face life behind bars after arrest | ITV News” – below is their description.
It was with desperation that their loved ones fled Hong Kong, and it is now a desperate wait for their relatives with their fate in China’s hands.
The 12 activists aged from 16 to 33, were all facing charges related to last year’s protests and one had recently been arrested under the new National Security Law.
They had set off in a speedboat from Po Toi O harbour on Hong Kong island, hoping to reach Taiwan and seek political asylum.
They made it just 45 miles when they were spotted and arrested by the Chinese Coastguard.
ITV News YouTube Channel
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In This Story: Hong Kong
Hong Kong, officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China (HKSAR), is a metropolitan area and special administrative region of the People’s Republic of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta of the South China Sea. With over 7.5 million residents of various nationalities in a 1,104-square-kilometre (426 sq mi) territory, Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated places in the world.
Hong Kong became a colony of the British Empire after the Qing Empire ceded Hong Kong Island at the end of the First Opium War in 1842. The colony expanded to the Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 after the Second Opium War and was further extended when Britain obtained a 99-year lease of the New Territories in 1898. The whole territory was transferred to China in 1997. As a special administrative region, Hong Kong maintains separate governing and economic systems from that of mainland China under the principle of “one country, two systems”.