Hong Kong offers bounties as it pursues dissidents abroad

Hong Kong’s Supreme Leader said on Tuesday that eight dissidents who had fled abroad would be “prosecuted for life” with large rewards in exchange for information leading to their prosecution.

The awards of 1 million Hong Kong dollars ($128,000) reflect a greater effort to pressure and intimidate influential activists who left Hong Kong following an attack. strict new law was imposed in 2020. The so-called national security law has resulted in the arrest of 260 people, the majority of whom accused of activities which took place in Hong Kong.

On Monday, police stressed the extraterritorial reach of the rules, which criminalize activities that endanger China, even if they have taken place outside of Hong Kong and mainland China. They said the accused had violated foreign collusion and incitement to secession provisions.

The eight charged by police are activists Nathan Law, Anna Kwok and Finn Lau; two former legislators, Dennis Kwok and Ted Hui; a lawyer, Kevin Yam; a union leader, Mung Siu-tat, and the businessman and YouTuber Elmer Yuen.

Ms. Kwok, the head of the Hong Kong Democracy Council in Washington, remained defiant. “It encourages me to go faster and stronger,” she said in a phone interview.

Can the activists be extradited?

The government’s announcement that it plans to seize the eight raises the question of whether Hong Kong will appeal to Interpol, the international clearing house for law enforcement, for help in pursuing the dissidents. Ronny Tong, a former lawmaker who sits in the cabinet of Hong Kong president John Lee, said the extradition of foreign activists was unlikely.

“Hong Kong law very strictly follows the UN Model Law on Extradition, which means that we will not seek the extradition of people who commit political crimes or defendants with a political background,” he said in a telephone interview.

However, he added that the activists could be detained when traveling through “friendly nations”. And Hong Kong authorities can still request legal assistance from international bodies, such as information on the whereabouts of the eight individuals and their activities, which could be used to prosecute them in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong police, asked if they would seek Interpol’s help, said in a statement Tuesday that they would “take all necessary measures in accordance with the law to stop those people in hiding”.

What’s driving the warrants and bounties?

Legal scholars said the charges and bounties were designed to divide, isolate and stigmatize the exiled activists as they campaigned for new laws in the United States, Britain and Australia in response to Hong Kong’s crackdown. Kong.

“They are implied to be dangerous criminals, when in fact they are peaceful critics of the Hong Kong government’s authoritarian turn,” said Thomas E. Kellogg, executive director of the Center for Asian Law. He added that the moves could backfire and instead put more pressure on governments to act against Hong Kong.

The bounties were an extension of tactics used by Beijing to attack activists abroad, such as Chinese police postssaid Eric Lai, an expert on Hong Kong law. Last March, the US Department of Justice accused five people of espionage on or intimidating Chinese-American dissidents on American soil.

Hong Kong police acknowledged the difficulty of arresting individuals living abroad in self-imposed exile, but they offered the $128,000 bounty in exchange for information that could be used as evidence in local courts for the “successful prosecution” of each individual. One of the main objectives, police added, was to ensure that authorities gathered enough evidence to prosecute the individuals if they voluntarily returned to Hong Kong.

“If they don’t return, we won’t be able to arrest them – that’s a fact,” Li Kwai-wah, superintendent of police, said at a news conference. “But we will not stop chasing them.”

Hong Kong leader John Lee put it more sharply. “The only way to end their fate of being a hider who will be haunted for life is to surrender,” he said on Tuesday.

How have other governments responded?

The allegations sparked protests from officials in the United States, Britain and Australia, where the eight individuals now live. The State Department called the extraterritorial application of the national security law “a dangerous precedent that threatens the human rights and fundamental freedoms of people around the world.”

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the government was “deeply concerned” about the arrest warrants and would continue to speak out on human rights issues. “Freedom of expression and assembly are essential to our democracy and we support those in Australia who exercise these rights,” she continued. Twitter on Monday.

British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said in a statement rack on Monday that Britain “will not tolerate any attempt by China to intimidate and silence individuals in the UK and abroad”.

But a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in London accused British politicians of “open reception of wanted fugitives” and in turn meddling in China’s internal affairs.