Surveillance cameras are seen at Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong last year. China has used its 2020 national security law to stamp out opposition in Hong Kong.Louise Delmotte/The Associated Press
Police in Hong Kong have questioned the father of an activist based in Canada with a $35,000 bounty on his head, according to local media.
Alan Keung, a Christian pastor and founder of the online publication Free HK Media, was jailed in Hong Kong on sedition charges in March, 2023, over a book he and two others sold at an independent literary fair. After his release, Mr. Keung relocated to Canada, where he has been involved in efforts to form a “parliament in exile” made up of pro-democracy activists from the Chinese territory.
Dressed in a clerical collar and protective gear, Mr. Keung was a common sight at pro-democracy protests in 2019. He worked as a volunteer medic as demonstrators clashed with police during months of increasingly violent unrest, which ended in July, 2020, with the passage of a draconian national security law that has since been used to stamp out essentially all opposition in Hong Kong.
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Last month, Hong Kong police said Mr. Keung and other overseas activists had sought to “unlawfully overthrow and undermine the constitutional system and the Chinese and Hong Kong authorities” by establishing the exile legislature, “promoting ‘self-determination’ and formulating a so-called ‘Hong Kong constitution.’”
In addition to his involvement with the “Hong Kong Parliament,” Mr. Keung is chair of the Taiwan-based Hong Kong Democratic Independence Union. The little-known separatist group made headlines last month when police in Hong Kong arrested four alleged members, aged 15 to 47, for subversion, a crime under the national security law.
Police have accused Mr. Keung of the same offence and last month posted a HK$200,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.
More than 30 such bounties of as much as HK$1-million have been issued for overseas activists in recent years, including several based in Canada, such as Victor Ho, another organizer of the “Hong Kong Parliament” and a former editor of the B.C. edition of Sing Tao Daily.
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In addition, numerous Hong Kong-based relatives and associates of bounty targets have been brought in for questioning by police in recent months.
The rewards, which have little chance of leading to arrests given that most targets live in countries without extradition treaties with Hong Kong, have sparked widespread condemnation of the territory’s government, hampering ongoing efforts to reform Hong Kong’s image and promote a return of foreign business and tourism.
In a statement last month, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand and Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree said the bounties represented “a deeply troubling escalation in the use of transnational repression by the People’s Republic of China.” Officials in the U.S., Australia and Britain issued similar condemnations.
Last week, the G7, along with the European Union and several other countries, issued another statement warning that bounties placed on Hong Kongers for “exercising their freedom of expression” were an act of transnational repression that “undermines national security, state sovereignty, human rights, and the safety of communities.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin JianTingshu Wang/Reuters
In response, China said Monday that it “strongly deplores and firmly opposes” members of the G7 “making irresponsible comments on the law enforcement activities of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government.”
“We urge the relevant countries and institutions to stop emboldening anti-China troublemakers and stop interfering in China’s internal affairs,” Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters in Beijing.
More foreign criticism is likely to come later this week when the marathon national security trial of Apple Daily publisher Jimmy Lai resumes. The prosecution is due to begin its closing arguments Thursday in a case that has been widely condemned as unfair by Western countries and human-rights organizations.
In a statement Tuesday, Reporters Sans Frontières director for advocacy Antoine Bernard said that, since his arrest, Mr. Lai “has been subjected to inhumane conditions, stripped of every shred of dignity and freedom.
“His treatment exposes the authorities’ ruthless determination to silence and suppress one of the most prominent advocates for press freedom amid Hong Kong’s rapidly deteriorating media landscape,” Mr. Bernard added. “With his trial nearing its conclusion, the international community must urgently act to secure the immediate release of Lai and six other Apple Daily staff members.”