Police detain seven people at Senate Square as part of ‘protest prevention’ operation

The Public Security Police Force (CPSP) detained a total of seven people at Senate Square on Monday night, as polices authorities held an operation in the location where a rejected protest against the Hong Kong police was to take place.

Last week, a request for a silent gathering to be held at Senate Square at 8:00pm on August 19 was rejected by CPSP, on the grounds that it was supporting illegal actions committed in Hong Kong and that it could incite local residents to conduct similar acts.

The protest organizer then dismissed the protest and urged people not to go to Senate Square on Monday night, as participants could be accused of taking part in participating in an illegal assembly.

However, authorities were still present in the area at the time, asking several people for ID documents and taking six men and one woman for further questioning.

The CPSP indicated that of the seven detained, four are local residents, two came from the Mainland and one was a Hong Kong resident.

Meanwhile, the Judiciary Police (PJ) also sent 26 police investigators to the same central area from 19:00pm to 22:00pm on Monday night, with the purposes of stopping and searching a total of 30 people, but no one was taken away.

According to a report by Radio Macau, the PJ had taken several men wearing white t-shirts to the parking lot within Finance Service Bureau (DFS) and marked down their ID numbers.

Also, All About Macau reported that two local residents were held in custody in the police station for some six hours and were only released at 2:20am this morning, although the police did not charge them with any infraction.

One of the residents said that she was found to have an ‘anti-extradition’ sticker in her bag, with police arguing that the sticker could prove that she had the intention to take part in an illegal assembly.