Hong Kong police have issued arrest warrants for eight overseas activists, accusing them of contravening the city’s national security law and offering a reward of HK$1m (£100,700) per person.
Supt Steve Li Kwai-wah, a police officer, told a press conference on Monday that Nathan Law, Anna Kwok, Finn Lau, Dennis Kwok, Ted Hui, Kevin Yam, Mung Siu-tat and Yuan Gong-yi, high-profile pro-democracy activists, former lawmakers and legal scholars, “have encouraged sanctions … to destroy Hong Kong”, according to Reuters.
The eight, who are based in various places including the UK – where at least three of them are thought to be – the US and Australia, are accused of continuing to violate the national security law while in exile. The charges carry a maximum life sentence.
Yam, a legal scholar who is now based in Australia, said: “I can’t say I’m surprised because whenever you speak out overseas about Hong Kong you never know what might happen. I feel no joy from being congratulated I just feel sad for Hong Kong.”
Sophie Richardson, the China director for Human Rights Watch, said: “These arrest warrants are not an indictment of these activists, but of Hong Kong’s once well-regarded law enforcement and judiciary. Democracies should not only flatly reject the warrants, which authorities want upheld internationally, but they should also increase protections to those threatened by Beijing.”
The law, which is widely seen as a Beijing-backed tool of suppression in Hong Kong, includes a provision that criminalises acts deemed to violate national security anywhere in the world. That has meant that even people who flee overseas can be targeted.
The warrants came days after the third anniversary of the law.
The national security law was imposed on Hong Kong in 2020 after months of pro-democracy protests had engulfed the city. Chinese and Hong Kong authorities say the law was necessary to restore stability to the territory but critics say that it violates free expression. In its latest report on the situation in Hong Kong, the UK’s Foreign Office said that the law, along with the use of a colonial-era sedition law against government critics, “continues to damage Hong Kong’s way of life”.
Police reportedly told the press conference that 260 people had been arrested as a result of the national security law, with 79 of them convicted.
