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Journalism of Courage
As part of its larger crackdown on activists in recent years, Hong Kong’s Deputy Commissioner of Police (National Security) announced on Tuesday (December 22) that wanted notices were issued against “six anti-China disruptors who have fled overseas.”
The National Security Department of the police force also said $1 million Hong Kong dollars (around $130,000) will be awarded for information leading to their arrests. Several national security offences, such as secession, subversion and collusion with foreign forces, have been cited as grounds for the warrants.
Such notices have been issued in the past as well, following protests in 2019-20 against the increasing control of mainland China’s government on the political system of Hong Kong. The six people named in the latest warrants range from political activists based overseas for the last few decades, to young students.
Chung was the former leader of the now-defunct pro-independence group Studentlocalism.
In 2021, he was sentenced under Hong Kong’s national security law of 2020, which criminalised calls for the city’s secession from China. At the time, he was the youngest person to be sentenced under it for a term of around three years. Following his release in 2023, he fled Hong Kong to seek asylum in the UK, going against the supervision order imposed on him.
He later told the BBC that he was thrown into a situation that was “an even bigger and more dangerous prison” than the one he had left. The police also reportedly asked him to report the whereabouts of other pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong.
Lau is a former district councillor and current activist with the US-based Hong Kong Democracy Council in the UK.
She told Radio Free Asia in an interview this year that she fled the city in 2021 amid a “crackdown on political opposition and dissent”.
Over time, she said, “We are seeing so many Hong Kong communities and organizations springing up in the U.K., and everyone is finding their role, finding different things to work on.”
Notably, the UK held control of Hong Kong for 99 years until 1997. Under the terms of the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984, it handed over the city to China on the condition that for the next 50 years (from 1997 to 2047) its economic and political autonomy should be retained. These historical ties have led many in Hong Kong to turn to the UK for asylum and immigration.
Cheung is a Communications and Media Assistant at the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong, which is based in the UK. The organisation recently amplified a post on X, which was critical of the recent warrants.
It said Chloe left Hong Kong at the age of 15. “Instead of attending university after graduation, she dedicated her youth to the movement” and campaigned for political prisoners in Hong Kong, it added. Cheung has also been involved in forming activist groups in Leeds, UK.
Chung was previously a senior member of the independent polling organisation Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute.
A short profile from the University of Oxford notes: “Dr Kim Wah Chung is a retired academic who has been teaching and doing research in Hong Kong for more than 30 years before his retirement in 2020. He then became the Deputy CEO for the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute for two years before he moved to UK, in ‘exile’ as some would say, in late April 2022. He has extensive knowledge of public administration, social policies, social welfare and social development of Hong Kong and China.” He delivered a talk at the university in 2024.
According to the South China Morning Post, Chung was accused of having “repeatedly advocated the city’s independence between May and June on a social media platform and called for sanctions against Beijing and Hong Kong between 2020 and 2023.”
Tay is a co-founder of the Canada-based NGO HongKonger Station.
According to his LinkedIn profile, since 2021 his radio show has also been broadcast daily nationwide “to a total of 81,680 people identified "Hong Konger" as their ethnic origin, while 213,855 people listed their place of birth as Hong Kong.” He is currently campaigning to be a candidate in the upcoming Canadian elections from the Conservative Party.
SCMP reported he was “charged with inciting secession and collusion with foreign forces after he allegedly posted videos calling for international sanctions on social media platforms via his channel between July 2020 and June this year.”
Ho is a YouTuber and was earlier a journalist and has been based in Canada for the last few years. He came under the radar of Hong Kong authorities when he, along with some activists, announced elections to a “Hong Kong Parliament”.
According to Canadian media organisation Global News, Ho said the goal was to establish a parliament that “can truly reflect the will of Hong Kongers”, criticising China’s influence in Hong Kong’s electoral process.
In 2014, students led protests in Hong Kong against China’s attempt to change the voting system in elections. Authorities said they would first screen the candidates who could contest in the polls. Ultimately, the proposal did not come into force.
