It's the biggest crackdown yet against the opposition camps.

It's the city's national security law was brought in last June with more than 50 people taken into custody on suspicion or violating the law, according to the Facebook page of the Democratic Party.

Wednesday's sweeping arrests included former lawmakers and activists James Toe Lamb shooting unless the sham, the Democratic Party said police arrested the activists for participating in an independently organized unofficial primary in July to select candidates for last September's legislative election.

In the end, that vote was postponed for a year due to public health restrictions.

The pro democracy movement had hoped to win a majority and some candidates wished to use it to block government proposals, which the Democratic Party says was seen as an act of subversion in violation off the national security law.

Local media said Wednesday's police operation included searches off the office is off the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute and lawyers who helped organize the primaries.

The Hong Kong government on Beijing warned that the unofficial primaries could violate the national security law.

Under the law, anything Beijing broadly defines a succession subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces is punishable by up to life in prison.

The latest arrests have drawn widespread criticism from rights groups and activists who accused Beijing or further undermining democratic freedoms in the former British colony.