Two Hong Kong pro-democracy advocates have announced that they have been granted asylum: former lawmaker Ted Hui in Australia and activist Tony Chung in the U.K.
Both men were convicted of violating Hong Kong’s restrictive national security law, which has quashed dissent after being imposed by Beijing in 2020 in the wake of massive pro-democracy protests. They are among dozens of activists who have fled Hong Kong authorities.
Hui, a former member of the Legislative Council who left Hong Kong while he was out on bail in 2020, was tried in absentia and given a nearly four-year jail term in 2022. He told RFA at the time that his trial was “a political trial, which was entirely predictable and unsurprising. The real culprits are the tyrannical regime, not those who protest against it.”
Since Hui’s conviction, Hong Kong officials have questioned his relatives, placed a HK$1 million ($128,211 USD) bounty on his capture, and, earlier this year, seized his assets.
Chung, who as a teenage secondary school student convened a group that advocated for Hong Kong’s independence from China, was also sentenced to a nearly four-year term. He was released early for good behavior.
In an interview with RFA after he fled to Britain in 2023, Chung said that after his release, national security police tried to hire him as an informant, and would seek him out for a meeting every two to four weeks, driving him in an SUV with drawn curtains to be interrogated in an unknown location.
“They wanted me to confess, and prove to them that I had nothing to hide and that I wasn’t engaging in any further secessionist activities,” he said.
Chung has also been put on a wanted list, and anonymous letters touting the HK$1 million reward for his capture were sent to his U.K. neighbors earlier this year.
Hong Kong’s government did not comment directly on the cases, but a spokesperson said Saturday that “any country that harbors Hong Kong criminals in any form shows contempt for the rule of law, grossly disrespects Hong Kong’s legal systems and barbarically interferes in the affairs of Hong Kong.”
Includes reporting from Agence France-Presse.
