translated from Spanish: China stops employee consult Brits for 15 days

BEIJING (AP) — An employee of the British consulate in Hong Kong was in administrative detention for 15 days in the Chinese city of Shenzhen for violating public order rules, The Chinese government said Wednesday. The case stoked fears from Hong Kong residents that Beijing is expanding its judicial reach to China’s semi-autonomous territory, which was a British colony.

“The relevant employee of a Hong Kong resident, not a British citizen,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a routine press conference. “In other words, it’s Chinese. This is a purely internal matter of China.” HELP US Click the Google News star and follow us according to the spokesman, the man violated the regulation on “Punishments of Public Order and Security Administration”, but offered no further details and noted that the case “is not a diplomatic matter”. About two dozen people gathered on Wednesday outside the Hong Kong consulate to demand that the British government intensify its efforts to secure the release of Simon Cheng Man-kit, a trade and investment official in the legation Diplomatic.
“Save Simon Now!” chanted in front of a wall with missing persons posters with Cheng’s image.

Max Chung, the protest organizer and Cheng’s friend, said he traveled to neighboring Shenzhen, mainland China, with a travel permit to the country for residents in Hong Kong and Macau. Cheng has a British passport, he added. The travel document is issued by the British authorities to all permanent residents in Hong Kong.Public order and security violations are usually minor charges, such as a street fight, and usually result in administrative sanctions in place of penalties. The maximum penalty for such offences is 15 days of detention. The British Foreign Office said she was “extremely concerned” about her employee. According to local media, Cheng attended a commercial event in Shenzhen on 8 August but never returned to neighboring Hong Kong despite having planned to do so later in the day. The detention of consular personnel of any category or rank is very unusual. The relationship between China and Britain has been softened in recent months by pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong.

Original source in Spanish