Police today arrested people suspected to have planned to paralyse the Government.

Secretary for Security John Lee made the statement this afternoon after attending a Legislative Council meeting.

He said: "The operation today targets the active elements who are suspected to have been involved in the crime of overthrowing or interfering, seriously destroying the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government's legal execution of duties.

"We are talking about taking action against the active elements. The operation today does not involve other non-active elements, including those who voted in the so-called primary election."

Mr Lee explained that the operation, in which more than 50 arrests were made, was necessary.

"I have explained that the people involved are suspected of making use of what they called a 35-plus plan and a 10-step mutual destruction scheme to in some way paralyse the Hong Kong SAR Government.

"They aimed to get 35 or more seats in the Legislative Council election through something they had organised as a primary, so that once they had achieved their goal, they would veto regardless of the actual content of the government budget so as to create a situation in which the Chief Executive had to resign and the Government had to stop functioning. This was to paralyse the Government.

"They had a 10-step mutual destruction plan, in which they would be mobilising large-scale riots in the streets together with other actions to in some way paralyse society, coupled with international sanctions.

"The plan was to create mutual destruction so that society as a whole, using their words, 'jumps off the cliff'. The plot was to cause such a mutual destruction that if successful, this 10-step mutual destruction plan would result in serious damage to society as a whole. That is why Police action today is necessary."

Mr Lee stressed that the Hong Kong SAR Government will not tolerate such illegal acts and must take stringent enforcement action.