Hong Kong is utilizing its nationwide safety regulation to arrest and prosecute critics residing in the US. The Hong Kong police not too long ago introduced money bounties of HK$1 million ($128,000) for data resulting in the arrest of 5 younger activists.
The targets—Frances Hui, Joey Siu, Simon Cheng, Johnny Fok, and Tony Choi—have all lawfully left Hong Kong and reside in nations that remember and assure their proper to talk freely. There at the moment are 13 abroad activists wished by the area’s police.
They’re all accused of violating Hong Kong’s nationwide safety regulation, which was enacted in 2020 and has since been used to clamp down on political dissent. Based on Amnesty Worldwide, the regulation has been “abused from day one” to curb reputable and peaceable expression. The utmost sentence is life in jail.
The bounty checklist underscores the significance of safeguarding freedom of thought and expression within the face of long-arm authoritarianism which, if left unchecked, can have a limitless attain.
“The entirety of the charge was based on my advocacy activities taking place out of Hong Kong,” explains Hui, one of many targets on the bounty checklist and the primary Hong Kong activist to obtain political asylum within the U.S. following the enactment of the nationwide safety regulation. “Among the 13 overseas activists who currently have bounties placed on them by the Hong Kong authorities, three of them are citizens of the U.S., Canada, and Australia, all for their activities abroad.”
The 2 rounds of bounties from this month and July “reflect the extraterritorial nature of the national security law,” Hui continues. “It doesn’t matter who you are, where you are, what you are doing. As long as you are considered a threat to the government, you are a threat to national security.”
Based on Hui, her private security is in danger, given the Chinese language authorities’s “outposts and overseas agents spread all around the world to spy [on] and harass activists abroad. She adds that “relations of wished people are anticipated to be questioned, and a few had been threatened to make public statements slamming their family members remotely.”
Now is the time for Americans to stand alongside those facing political persecution and push back on this foreign attempt at globalized censorship.
Hong Kong is emblematic of the fragility of democracy. The region was introduced to democratic and free market ideals through British rule. For over two decades, the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, ranked it the world’s freest economy. But this prosperity reached a swift end. “The lack of political freedom and autonomy” has had dire consequences, wrote former Heritage President Edwin J. Feulner, especially as ties to “English widespread regulation, freedom of speech, and democracy” have been severed entirely.
As Hong Kong changes, the West cannot follow suit. It should ensure that when people fleeing authoritarianism seek refuge within a liberal democracy, they enjoy the protections that come with it.
If Hong Kong police arrest the activists, the penalties could be severe, if not life-threatening—as seen in the case of Jimmy Lai. Uncoincidentally, the December bounty list was released at the same time that Lai, a 76-year-old British citizen, began to stand trial for his pro-democracy advocacy and publishing. He has been an outspoken critic of the Chinese government’s human rights abuses, a “crime” that has landed him in solitary confinement for the past three years. According to his son, Lai is being subjected to a fixed-outcome “present” trial with three government-appointed judges and no jury.
Lai’s ongoing trial and the bounty list highlight the need for Western countries to safeguard free speech. These are foreign attempts to chill dissent regardless of where an activist is from or where he resides. If the Hong Kong police succeed in that mission, they may well go after all criticism, targeting major news outlets covering Lai’s trial and social media users who reshare posts that say #FreeHongKong.
Our protections without spending a dime speech can’t be so shallow that they yield to international governments that attempt to criminalize conduct on our soil. The U.S. and different Western nations should shield these activists in opposition to long-arm authoritarianism and safe their capacity to dwell and converse freely with out worry for his or her security.