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Former pro-democracy lawmakers Ted Hui Chi-fung and Nathan Law Kwun-chung were among eight self-exiled activists each being placed a HK$1 million bounty by the city’s national security police on Monday as they were wanted over alleged collusion with foreign countries or external elements.
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The remaining six wanted by the national security police are lawyer Kevin Yam Kin-fung, former lawmaker Dennis Kwok Wing-hang, activists Elmer Yuen Gong-yi, Anna Kwok Fung-yee, Finn Lau Cho-dik and unionist Mung Siu-tat.
The national security police said that the court had approved to issue of arrest warrants regarding the eight persons who have absconded overseas.
The eight activists are based in various places including the United States, Britain and Australia. They were alleged to have continued to commit offences that seriously endanger national security, including incitement to secession, subversion, incitement to subversion and collusion with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security.
"They advocated for sanctions to damage Hong Kong's interests and intimidate Hong Kong's officials with some targeting specifically some judges and prosecutors," the chief superintendent of police for national security Li Kwai-wah said.
The authorities are now offering a reward of HK$1 million for each of the wanted and appealing to the public for information leading to any arrest.
Li added that offering the bounties was not the force’s way of putting on a show but simply enforcing the law to bring those responsible to justice.
"If they don't return, we won't be able to arrest them, that's a fact," he said. "But we won't stop wanting them."
The police stressed that it is illegal for anyone to aid, abet or provide pecuniary or other financial assistance to other persons for committing offences which endanger national security.
A total of 260 people had been arrested since the national security law was imposed in 2020, and 161 of them have been charged.
"All they want to do is try to make a show of their view that the national security law has extra-territorial effect," Yam, one of the accused activists, told Reuters by telephone from Australia.
"It's my duty ... to continue to speak out against the crackdown that is going on right now, against the tyranny that is now reigning over the city that was once one of the freest in Asia."
Another accused, Ted Hui, who is in exile in Australia, said the bounty was "ridiculous and hilarious" but would add to the weight of China's persecution against the Hong Kong diaspora.
"It even makes it clearer to the western democracies that China is going towards a more extreme authoritarian (direction) and (is posing) more of a threat to the world," Hui told AFP in a written response.
Anna Kwok, executive director of the Hong Kong Democracy Council, told Reuters from Washington she would not back down.
"One key thing I urge President Biden to do immediately is to say a strong and firm NO to John Lee's possible entry into the Untied States for November's APEC meeting in San Francisco," Kwok added, referring to the Hong Kong chief executive.
Nathan Law said on Twitter that he has been "wanted" for other cases, and obtained refugee status in the UK two years ago. "I ask Hongkongers not to cooperate with any related pursuit or bounty actions," he wrote. "We should not limit ourselves, self-censor, be intimidated, or live in fear."
In Hong Kong, Eunice Yung Hoi-yan, a serving legislator and the daughter-in-law of accused activist Elmer Yuen, supported the police move against Yuen and emphasised that she had openly severed ties with him last year.
"All his acts and deeds have nothing to do with me," Yung wrote on her social media page.
(Staff reporter, Reuters and AFP)
Also read:
Explainer: Acts of the eight wanted overseas activists accused of endangering national security
Fugitives could not evade legal liabilities by absconding HK, says govt
