Police investigators said on Monday that six men aged 18 to 24 were being held on suspected conspiracy to commit arson outside the Legislative Council Complex earlier this month. A homemade incendiary device was set off in a garbage can outside the LegCo Complex on the night of Dec 9. Police suspect at least two people were involved in this worrying criminal act. The leading police investigator told reporters on Monday at the crime scene some of the suspects are tertiary students. This includes one who publicly professed online that he belongs to a "nativist" group.

Several members of such an organization were arrested by police earlier this year for making and testing explosive/incendiary devices in an abandoned factory building in the New Territories. It is public knowledge that several groups advocating "nativism" have emerged after the illegal "Occupy Central" movement ended last winter. Some have openly advocated the use of violence to achieve their separatist goals. Many of their young members took part in last year's illegal "Occupy" campaign. They subsequently confronted police in violent protests.

Some commentators for some unknown reasons may have dismissed the possibility of domestic terrorism in Hong Kong. But surely they cannot honestly refer to the incidents mentioned above as child's play? Although police have yet to confirm the true motives of the LegCo arson suspects, we have a good reason to believe such a "call to arms" was not just bluffing. If the US' definition of "domestic terrorism" is anything to go by, we should at least accept that Hong Kong is not immune to such politically motivated criminal acts.

The illegal "Occupy" movement may have ended but the damage it did to Hong Kong's rule of law lingers and the incidents mentioned above are strong evidence of this - circumstantial though it may be at this moment. People should remember one of the initiators of the "Occupy" took great pains to convince the public and young people in particular that it is all right to break the law in the name of "civil disobedience". He and his followers may or may not have foreseen his prophecy fulfilled in such a dramatic fashion. But some young people apparently took his words literally.

It is high time the SAR government as well as the public acknowledged the danger of a growing tendency to resort to potentially violent means to express political aims. There is no guarantee some people will not try such outrageous acts again.

(HK Edition 12/22/2015 page9)