CHINA: A leading Hong Kong pro-democracy politician has been jailed after he was found naked in a hotel bedroom with a prostitute in southern China just weeks before key legislative elections in the former British colony.
The Democratic Party is trying to take control from the China lobby in legislative elections in the city state on September 12th but the scandal could prove a big headache for pro-democracy politicians.
Ho Wai-to, who was a candidate for the Democratic Party in Kowloon East in the elections, was arrested in Dongguan city after Chinese police said they found him and the prostitute during a vice raid.
Police ordered him detained without trial for six months for "re-education", prompting some Hong Kong democrats to accuse Beijing of trying to smear the image of the Democratic Party, which has been critical of the central government.
Mr Ho has denied the charges, but the case is a major setback for the party, which has enjoyed a surge of popularity on the back of growing demands for more democracy in Hong Kong, which was returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Last month, 350,000 people took to the streets to demand more democracy and express their anger at China for suppressing Hong Kong's democratic ambitions.
Hong Kongers are divided on Mr Ho's fate.
Some believe he has been justly punished for soliciting, but some commentators in the territory are suspicious about the circumstances in which he was caught. Hong Kong newspapers have made the most of the story, filling pages with lurid drawings and not stinting on detail. The democrats and Mr Ho's family have petitioned Beijing to release the politician, saying he needs regular medication for hepatitis.
Chinese officials have heaped abuse on leading democracy activists and a number of Hong Kong people reported receiving threatening calls from China, telling them not to vote for pro-democracy candidates in September.
The Democratic Party currently holds 11 seats in the 60-member legislature.
A poll released before Mr Ho's detention showed the democrats thrashing pro-government and pro-China parties if the election had been held in early August.
Pro-democracy activists have been calling for universal suffrage in Hong Kong because there is increasing dissatisfaction with the territory's Beijing-backed chief executive, Mr Tung Chee-hwa.
China tightened its grip on the city in April by ruling out universal suffrage in 2007, when the city's next chief executive is due to be selected. The move angered democrats and alienated many in Hong Kong, who accused Beijing of breaking its promise to allow them a high degree of autonomy, guaranteed under the territory's mini-constitution, the Basic Law.
One Democratic Party worker said some residents had abused canvassers since Mr Ho was detained.
"They used to call us traitors, now they use terms associated with prostitutes," Mr Law Chi-kwong said, referring to a new nickname given to the party - the "hiring prostitute party".