Police on Chinese territory are offering a $130,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of six activists.
Hong Kong authorities have put a bounty on six pro-democracy activists accused of undermining national security in the latest crackdown to highlight shrinking space for dissent in the financial hub.
Tuesday’s announcement by police is the third time authorities have offered rewards of one million Hong Kong dollars ($130,000) for information leading to the arrest of democracy advocates based abroad .
The list of people wanted on Chinese territory now includes 19 activists accused of vaguely defined crimes of secession, subversion or collusion.
Hong Kong Security Secretary Chris Tang said the activists had endangered national security by carrying out activities such as lobbying for sanctions against Hong Kong officials and judges.
The newly added activists include Tony Chung, former leader of the pro-Hong Kong independence group Studentlocalism, Joseph Tay, founder of the Canada-based advocacy organization Hongkonger Station, and Carmen Lau of the Hong Kong Democracy Council.
The others are Chung Kim-wah, a former pollster at the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute, Victor Ho, a Canadian-based YouTuber, and Chloe Cheung of the Hong Kong Freedom Committee.
“Since I fled, I have often regretted not being able to serve my people to the end,” Lau said in a post on X.
“Therefore, as a member of the diaspora and a Hong Konger, I vow to put our fight for Hong Kong before anything else, even before myself. »
Authorities also said they had canceled the passports of seven activists previously added to the wanted list, including former Hong Kong lawmaker Ted Hui.
Hong Kong, once home to a vigorous political opposition and one of the freest media environments in Asia, has criminalized virtually all dissent under strict security laws introduced in response to massive 2019 anti-government protests.
Western governments and human rights groups have condemned the crackdown in the former British colony, while officials in mainland China and Hong Kong have defended the laws as necessary to restore stability after the protests often violent in 2019.
None of the 19 wanted people are likely to be extradited to Hong Kong because they live in Western countries that have expressed concern about diminishing rights and freedoms in the city.
Kevin Yam, an Australia-based lawyer who was added to the wanted list last July after being accused of collusion with a foreign power, said the latest bounties would harm the city’s efforts to restore its international image, which has been battered by repression and some of the world’s strictest border controls during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“What I would say is that every time Hong Kong tries to revive itself, its government does something repressive to undermine all of that,” Yam told Al Jazeera.
“And they are childish enough to think that in the age of the 24-hour news cycle, throwing out the ‘bad news’ on Christmas Eve can make things less bad for them.”
