Employee of Britain’s Hong Kong mission held in China over prostitution: report

BEIJING  – An worker of the British consulate in Hong Kong has been detained in China for involvement in prostitution, the state-backed World Occasions newspaper stated on Thursday, as Britain stated it continued to urgently search info.

China’s overseas ministry confirmed on Wednesday that the worker, Simon Cheng, had been detained within the border metropolis of Shenzhen neighbouring Hong Kong.

In a report on its English-language web site, the paper, printed by the ruling Communist Celebration’s official Folks’s Day by day, cited Shenzhen police as saying Cheng had been detained for 15 days for “solicitation of prostitution”.

Police in Shenzhen’s district of Luohu stated Cheng had violated article 66 of the legislation on administrative penalties for public safety, it added.

The legislation gives for individuals who have interaction in prostitution, or who go to prostitutes, to be detained for a interval starting from 10 to 15 days, and so they might also be fined 5,000 yuan ($705.15).

Shenzhen police referred Reuters to the World Occasions report, saying it contained all of the related particulars, and declined to remark additional.

In a press release, Britain’s Overseas Workplace stated it was persevering with to “urgently search additional details about Simon’s case”.

It added, “Neither we nor Simon’s household have been in a position to converse to him since his detention. That’s our precedence and we proceed to boost Simon’s case repeatedly in China, Hong Kong and London and have sought to make contact with Simon himself.”

Cheng didn’t return to work on Aug. 9 after visiting the mainland metropolis of Shenzhen the day before today, Hong Kong information web site HK01 stated, citing an interview along with his girlfriend and household.

READ  No vote on Russia joining G7 expected this weekend: U.S. official

Cheng’s household confirmed his disappearance in a Fb publish on Tuesday evening, saying he travelled from Hong Kong to Shenzhen on the morning of Aug. eight for a enterprise journey.

Hong Kong has been gripped by anti-government protests in current weeks, with China accusing Britain and different Western nations of meddling in its affairs.

Britain, america and different nations have urged China to respect the “one nation, two programs” formulation underneath which Hong Kong returned from British to Chinese language rule in 1997.

($1=7.0907 Chinese language yuan renminbi)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *