Hong Kong Police Say Activist Faked Account of Kidnapping and Torture<br />15, 2017<br />HONG KONG — The police in Hong Kong said on Tuesday<br />that a pro-democracy activist falsified his account last week of being abducted by men he said were mainland Chinese security officers who put staples in his legs.<br />The activist, Howard Lam, a member of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party, gave his account to reporters last week and showed rows of staples in his upper thighs<br />that his supporters said were meant as a warning to people who might cross the mainland authorities.<br />He said that he received a call last week from a man speaking Mandarin, a language not much used among Hong Kong’s Cantonese speakers.<br />But FactWire, a local investigative news agency, compiled security video<br />that appeared to show Mr. Lam heading home from shopping on his own, with no signs of a kidnapping.<br />Mr. Lam said that in early July, he wrote to F.C.<br />They knocked him out with a chemical that he was forced to inhale, he said, then<br />took him to a rural area where they beat him and drove staples into his legs.
