Taipei, Taiwan – After silencing Hong Kong’s pro-democracy motion, authorities within the territory have discovered a brand new goal: the relations of dissidents who fled abroad.
As pro-democracy Hong Kongers proceed their activism in self-imposed exile, police are turning their consideration to their households, buddies, and associates nonetheless dwelling within the metropolis.
Final month, Hong Kong police introduced a a million Hong Kong greenback ($128,888) reward for data resulting in the arrest of eight overseas-based dissidents wished for nationwide safety offences, prompting condemnation from human rights organisations and Western governments.
Since then, nationwide safety police have raided the household houses of no less than 4 of the wished activists – businessman Elmer Yeun, commerce unionist Christopher Mung, and former legislators Nathan Legislation and Dennis Kwok – and introduced in additional than a dozen relations for questioning.
On Thursday, authorities raided houses belonging to relations of Yeun, who is predicated in the USA, for a second time in little over per week, taking in his ex-wife and son for questioning after earlier interrogating his son, daughter and daughter-in-law.
No arrests have been made following the raids.
The eight suspects – who additionally embody lawyer Kevin Yam, ex-legislator Ted Hui, and activists Anna Kwok and Finn Lau – face a spread of vaguely-defined offences, together with overseas collusion and subversion, below Kong’s sweeping nationwide safety regulation (NSL), which has all however worn out opposition to Beijing since its passage in 2020.
Lots of the offences they’re accused of below the Beijing-drafted laws, which claims jurisdiction over each individual on the planet, relate to acts carried out exterior of the town.
Hong Kong authorities’ shift to concentrating on households is the newest signal of the town’s rising alignment with the authoritarian ways of the Chinese language mainland, the place households and buddies of dissidents are sometimes harassed by police and pressured to encourage their family members to return to China or cease their activism, activists say.
“Now [Hong Kong police] behave just like the safety equipment within the mainland,” Chongyi Feng, an affiliate professor in China research on the College of Expertise, Sydney, instructed Al Jazeera. “It’s precisely what they name the ‘mainlandisation’ of Hong Kong politics and governance.”
China’s ruling Communist social gathering has lengthy been recognized for its efforts to silence dissent abroad.
Uighur activists resembling Rebiya Kadeer and Zumrat Dawut have spoken publicly about their households in China going through intimidation because of their advocacy in opposition to Beijing.
In April, the US justice division charged 44 individuals in China and overseas over the “transnational repression” of Chinese language dissidents allegedly topic to harassment whereas dwelling within the US.
Hong Kong Police Pressure didn’t reply to a request for remark in time for publication.
The police have beforehand instructed media retailers that they’ve questioned relations of fugitives on suspicion of “helping individuals wished by police to proceed to commit acts and have interaction in actions that endanger nationwide safety”.
Even after Hong Kong’s return to Chinese language sovereignty in 1997, the previous British colony for many years retained a vibrant civic life, political variety and probably the most trusted authorized programs in Asia below an association referred to as “one nation, two programs”.
For the reason that imposition of the NSL following usually violent antigovernment protests in 2019, free speech and meeting rights have been radically curtailed and demanding voices have all however vanished the political and media panorama.
All bets off
So far as pro-democracy figures are involved, all bets are off – for each themselves and their households.
“You might sacrifice your self in your personal political opinions,” stated Feng, who was detained for 10 days whereas visiting China in 2017 and has had his household and 90-year-old mom within the nation visited by police.
“However when your loved ones members or buddies have been subjected to torture or punishment, you’ll develop a powerful sense of guilt that you simply’re bringing bother to your relations and to your family members. That may be a very brutal tactic utilized by dictatorships.”
Eric Lai, a Hong Kong-born nonresident fellow at Georgetown Heart for Asian Legislation, stated that questioning dissidents’ households and placing up bounties and wished posters for his or her arrest had extra to do with sending a message than typical regulation enforcement actions.
“If you’re investigating cash laundering or [organised] crimes, then you’ll not announce who you’re going to interrogate to alert fugitives and wished individuals,” Lai instructed Al Jazeera. “So, it’s extra like a political present.”
Hui, the self-exiled former legislator, stated he had been visited 3 times by police earlier than fleeing to Europe with the assistance of Danish legislators whereas on bail pending trial for protest-related costs.
“Within the three months earlier than I left Hong Kong … I had police morning raids, that means that they knock in your door at 5 – 6 within the morning, then arrested me, handcuffed me, and questioned me, and searched my dwelling whereas my spouse and my youngsters have been there,” Hui instructed Al Jazeera.
“The primary time was fairly terrifying as a result of my household by no means skilled that. The second time and the third time we have been alerted and form of being ready once we heard that knocking. So my spouse was like, ‘It’s them once more. It should be,’” he stated.
Hui stated his mother and father, spouse, kids and sister all now reside in Australia with him, however different activists will not be so fortunate.
“I’ve been involved with fairly just a few of them and, sure, among the youthful ones, those with out that a lot expertise of being issued arrest warrants, they’re a bit extra apprehensive about private security,” he stated. “However I believe the main issue remains to be that they nonetheless have relations in Hong Kong, they usually’ve been harassed, they’ve been questioned. I believe that’s the largest factor.”
Yeun, Mung, Legislation, Yam, Lau, and Dennis and Anna Kwok didn’t reply to requests for remark.
In a current opinion piece within the Australian newspaper, The Age, Yam, whose household is with him in Australia, stated that he had scaled again social media exercise and eliminated followers who had labored for the Hong Kong authorities or could help Beijing.
“Lots of my buddies have been jailed just because they wished rights that we in Australia take as a right,” he stated. “Dwelling as a citizen of a liberal democracy, I owe it to courageous Hong Kongers to proceed talking out for them till Hong Kong is free.”
For the households of exiles nonetheless in Hong Kong, they’ve little authorized recourse, in response to a former lawyer there who spoke on situation of anonymity.
“There’s nothing that an individual who’s been taken in for questioning or just arrested after which not charged, can do,” the lawyer Al Jazeera. “They don’t have any particular plan of action they will take except it quantities to one thing like false imprisonment.”
“The police, realizing that they will’t bodily go after these people who find themselves abroad, are simply making an attempt to do every part that they will to harass them, which is by placing their claws into their relations and no matter property they’ve left in Hong Kong,” the lawyer added.
