CHINA RELEASES UK CONSULATE WORKER’S ‘CONFESSION’

BEIJING:CHINESE police on Thursday published a video purporting to show a former employee of the British consulate in Hong Kong confessing to soliciting prostitutes, after Britain backed his allegation that he was tortured over pro-democracy protests.

The case has added to tensions between Beijing and London over the demonstrations that have roiled the former British colony for months.

Simon Cheng, a Hong Kong citizen, said on Wednesday he was shackled to a steel “tiger chair”, hung spread-eagled on a “steep X-cross” and beaten by secret police while he was detained in the southern mainland city of Shenzhen for 15 days in August.

Shenzhen police on Thursday posted a video on the Twitter-like Weibo platform purporting to show Cheng entering and leaving a room in a “clubhouse” multiple times.

Also on Thursday, China called upon US President Donald Trump to veto the legislation aimed at supporting Hong Kong’s protest movement, warning that it will retaliate with countermeasures if the Congress-backed bills become law. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act undermines Beijing’s interests in the semi-autonomous territory.

Meanwhile, inside the increasingly empty and trashed campus of a Hong Kong university, only a handful of activists held out on Thursday as they desperately searched for ways to escape or hide while squads of police encircled the grounds.