Hong Kong puts bounties on dissidents in US, arrests pro-democracy activists

Just days after Hong Kong police placed bounties on eight prominent pro-democracy activists who have fled the semi-autonomous city, five people have been arrested. They have been accused of aiding dissidents abroad.

The five suspects, ages 24 to 28, were detained for conspiracy to sedition, a colonial-era offense. Activists said the charge has been used by police more and more in recent years as China has exerted its authority and influence in order to stifle legitimate criticism of authorities.

As for the activists’ bounties, each one is worth 1 million Hong Kong dollars, or about $128,000. The activists, which include former lawmakers, are accused of national security violations ranging from collusion with foreign forces to subversion of state power.

They are now in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. All of these countries have suspended their extradition treaties with Hong Kong.

“To be honest, I don’t feel really safe in the U.K., but this will not deter myself from continuing on the advocacy effort, continuing to advocate for more human rights and democracy, as well as reducing the dependency on the Chinese market because this is something that we should do,” Finn Lau, one of the activists, said on Wednesday, July 5. “Sometimes we have to take the pain if we want to achieve something. When the so-called enemy or when the goal is the Chinese Communist Party, they seem invincible, but still that means that we have to take the greatest pain. So that’s why I’m not, well, scared at all.”

The bounties have been seen as the most drastic law enforcement action since the initial arrests that followed the introduction of a new national security law back in June of 2020. The law was imposed following massive pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong the year prior.

In a further step away from democracy, Hong Kong lawmakers voted Thursday, July 6, to pass an amendment to a law that would eliminate most directly-elected seats on local district councils. The proportion of directly-elected seats at the municipal level will now drop from about 90% to about 20%. That’s even lower than when the local district councils were first set up in the 1980s, when Hong Kong was a British colony.