HONG KONG -- Five people had been arrested on suspicion of desecrating the national flag, the Hong Kong Police Force told Xinhua on Friday.

The five, four males and one female aged between 20 and 22, were arrested on Aug 14 and Aug 15 in Mong Kok, Ma On Shan, Sham Shui Po, Ngau Tau Kok and Wong Tai Sin respectively.

The police also seized some computers, phones and clothes from their residence for further investigation.

On Aug 3 and Aug 5, some radical protesters removed the Chinese national flag from a flagpole in Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon Peninsula, and later threw it into the sea.

According to the National Flag and National Emblem Ordinance of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, a person who desecrates the national flag or national emblem by publicly and wilfully burning, mutilating, scrawling, defiling or trampling commits an offence. If convicted, he or she is fined at level 5 and jailed for three years.