By Elizabeth Sykes

Police have added to their targeting of eight Hong Kong activists located abroad, including former lawmakers Nathan Law, Ted Hui and Dennis Kwok by adopting scare tactics from issuing arrest warrants for them and offering 1 million Hong Kong dollars ($127,000 USD) for information leading to their arrests to recently summoning many of their family members in Hong Kong for questioning, said VOA News. 

The eight activists under arrest warrant and bounty are Finn Lau, Nathan Law, Christopher Mung, Kevin Yam, Ted Hui, Anna Kwok, Dennis Kwok, and Elmer Yuen. According to AP News, on July 3, Hong Kong police issued the arrest warrants and rewards offering for any information that could lend to their arrests. 

Family members have not yet been charged or arrested. However, by treating their family members as hostages, Hong Kong’s police are clearly sending threatening signals to activists, experts say.

After large protests against the government in 2019, a National Security Law (NSL) from Beijing was enacted by the government to quiet voices of dissent as of July 2020. Since then, 260 citizens have been arrested for charges against the law in Hong Kong.

The police accused the eight international activists of violating the national security law, causing backlash from Western countries. The rewards are the law’s only bounties as of yet. 

On July 11, Hong Kong police first took Law’s parents and brothers in for interrogation. Law said his family “have no financial connection” with him and that his work has nothing to do with them. Family members of Dennis Kwok, Anna Kwong, Christopher Mung, and Elmer Yuen were also questioned in following weeks. The brothers of Anna Kwok, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based organization Hong Kong Democracy Council, were taken away for questioning on August 22. She has since written on social media that she wouldn’t cave to the government’s campaign to silence her. She wrote, “Little do they know nothing can stop me from pursuing freedom.”

Former Democratic party lawmaker Ted Hui told Reuters the bounty adds more pressure than the arrest warrants themselves under the NSL, but “free countries will not extradite us.”

“The bounty … makes it clearer to the western democracies that China is going towards more extreme authoritarianism.” Hui has lived in Australia since 2021.

The harassment the eight overseas activists face could also happen to civilians trying to join the democracy movement. Ted Hui explained the situation of his fellow wanted activists whose family members have been interrogated.  “If they want to engage in activism, it might jeopardize the safety of people connected to them.” 

According to Reuter’s, the security law has stymied dissent from many since its enactment in 2020, but the pro-Beijing government says it is bringing back stability to the former British colony, which was returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

The United States and other western countries say the law undermines the rights and freedoms guaranteed under the “one country, two systems” agreement between Britain and Hong Kong. 

Some Chinese and Hong Kong authorities, however, say the law may restore economic stability to Hong Kong.

Finn Lau told Reuters from London that the reward was motivated by suspended extradition treaties with Hong Kong  by many democratic countries. An expert on Asian law, Samuel Bickett said he believes the Hong Kong authorities’ goal is to shut down the larger protests and increase fear among Hong Kong citizens not central to the movement.

Police accused Yam of pressuring international officials to bring about sanctions against Hong Kong’s judicial officials. “I miss Hong Kong but as things stand, no rational person would be going back,” said Yam. 

Issues with escalating violence from Hong Kong police has happened abroad as well in the past year. In October 2022, during a Hong Kong Democracy protest in Manchester, England, Chinese officials pulled former Hong Kong resident Bob Chan into the consulate’s gates and physically assaulted him. He was hospitalized for his injuries, reported AP News.

More recently on August 10, Hong Kong police arrested ten people in the former Demosisto party, founded by Law, on suspicion of endangering national security through their supposed involvement with a fund to help people arrested in the 2019 pro-democracy protests. The Hong Kong police said the four men and six women were suspected of conspiring to collude with the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund to receive international donations for dissident organizations and provide financial support to people who have fled Hong Kong.

Police told the recent press conference that of the 260 people arrested under the NSL, 79 of them have been convicted of subversive and terroristic offenses. The police also admitted that the chances of prosecution of the activists with bounties was slim if the defendants remained abroad.

“We are definitely not putting on a political show nor disseminating fear,” Li, a Hong Kong police official, said. “If they don’t return, we won’t be able to arrest them,” he said. “But we won’t stop wanting.”

The issues of mounting pressure from police are of international concern, especially because of the UK’s previous involvement with Hong Kong and large populations of Hong Kongers in the west. These international concerns will not go away, and English-speaking countries with Cantonese populations need to step up their support of activists to deter threats to Hong Kong’s democracy.