Distrective letters from Hong Kong appeared in Melbourne -Mailboxes with a premium of $ 200,000 on the head of an Australian citizen.
The letters that circulated last week contained a photo of Kevin Yam and called him a 'wanted person'.
Yam worked for 20 years as a lawyer in Hong Kong and argued for democracy in the now Chinese territory, before returning to Australia in 2022.
“Kevin is searched for suspicion of a series of national security -related violations,” the Letters said.
“A reward of a million Hong Kong dollars ($ 200,000) is offered by the Hong Kong police to every audience that can provide information about this wanted person and the associated crime or can bring him to Hong Kong or Australia.”
Yam, now a PhD student at the Melbourne Law School, said that the letters were nothing less than a call for me to be abducted “by the Chinese authorities.
“Given the letters about me, official contact details of the Hong Kong police, my conclusion, these were acts of the Chinese or Hong Kong authorities, or parties that work with their explicit or tacit approval,” he wrote in a piece for the Sydney Morning Herald on Thursday
Former politician in Hong Kong Ted Hui was also the target of a campaign in which pamphlets were sent to Adelaide mosques that represented him as a pro-Israeli lawyer who “wanted war” against Islamic terrorism.
“Kevin is being sought to suspect a series of national security -related violations,” said the letters
The letters circulated in Melbourne last week, Kevin Yam, who worked as a lawyer in Hong Kong for 20 years
Mr Yam said that both the Australian government and the opposition 'had responded strongly' to both pamphlets, which was 'reassuring for me and for Hui, because they show that threats are taken seriously against us'.
'Bringing threats off the Australian coasts shows China's contempt for the legal sovereignty of Australia.
“They are even closer to home than the recent of the Chinese navy in the exclusive economic zone of Australia.”
Mr. Yam referred to living shooting exercises by Chinese warships under an area of ​​busy commercial airspace in the Tasman Sea.
“As much as Australia might want to shower China with love, China has shown that it will not answer,” he added.
“Instead, it continues to behave as an authoritarian bully that will ignore the sovereignty, democracy and social cohesion of Australia as long as the Chinese communist party remains in power.”
Foreign Minister Penny Wong said this week that she had discussed the issue of both pamphlets with civil servants of Chinese and Hong Kong.
“We are a sovereign nation,” said Mrs. Wong.
Mr. Yam is now a PhD student at Melbourne Law School
'We accept none of our citizens or on our coasts, people are bullied or harassed or threatened by a foreign power.
“We expect our democracy and our citizens to work from such interference, that kind of pressure or threats.”
Shadow Home Affairs Minister James Paterson called both campaigns 'completely unacceptable and illegal'.
In a statement to the ABC, the Hong Kong government insisted that it would not send anonymous letters.
