US Condemns Hong Kong’s Targeting of Democracy Activists Abroad

The USA has urged Hong Kong to cease utilizing its ‘nationwide safety legal guidelines to silence dissent.’

The USA has condemned the Hong Kong authorities’s issuance of arrest warrants and bounties for pro-democracy activists overseas and the cancellation of seven extra passports, calling the transfer a blatant try and stifle dissent and lengthen transnational repression.

In an announcement on Dec. 26, the U.S. Division of State mentioned it rejected the Hong Kong authorities’s efforts to “ intimidate and silence people who select to make the US their residence.”

“The USA doesn’t waver in its advocacy for many who are focused merely for exercising their proper to freedom of expression,” the assertion mentioned.

This comes after Hong Kong’s safety secretary, Chris Tang, accused six pro-democracy activists of committing crimes that embody incitement, secession, subversion, and collusion with international forces. Tang mentioned the six had compromised pure safety by advocating for Hong Kong officers and judges to be sanctioned by international governments by way of speeches, social media posts, and lobbying.

In its assertion, the State Division mentioned Hong Kong’s actions disregard worldwide norms and the rights to freedom of expression and peaceable meeting.

“We name on the Hong Kong authorities to cease utilizing its nationwide safety legal guidelines to silence dissent,” the State Division mentioned.

Nationwide Safety Legal guidelines

The Hong Kong authorities’s strikes stem from its controversial nationwide safety legal guidelines, which critics say are used to criminalize dissent and silence opposition voices worldwide.

The USA and the worldwide group have repeatedly voiced considerations over the erosion of democratic freedoms within the former British colony after Beijing imposed a nationwide safety legislation in 2020 after months of pro-democracy protests. Till this level, Hong Kong had loved a excessive diploma of autonomy because the area was returned to China underneath the Sino-British Declaration.

Nonetheless, the nationwide safety legislation gave Beijing sweeping powers to crack down on dissent and erode town’s freedoms.

The broader implications of Hong Kong’s actions have been seen as a part of a wider pattern of authoritarian regimes reaching past their border to suppress critics overseas.

Hong Kong police just lately introduced bounties for six pro-democracy activists who had escaped town in mild of Beijing’s growing management. On Dec. 24, Hong Kong authorities issued arrest warrants for the six activists underneath the nationwide safety legislation, providing a reward of HK$1 million (US$128,800) for any data that might assist find them.

The most recent transfer will increase the variety of people on the Hong Kong Police Pressure’s needed record for purported breaches of the nationwide safety legislation imposed by Beijing from 13 to 19.

Worldwide criticism has emerged in response to those actions. The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), which incorporates a whole bunch of lawmakers from across the globe, condemned the current arrest warrants in a put up on X, saying “the persevering with political persecution of those peaceable pro-democracy figures.”

IPAC additionally mentioned on Dec. 24 that “the continued failure of the worldwide group to carry China accountable for the dismantling of Hong Kong’s freedoms exacerbates transnational repression.”

Hong Kong’s transfer to focus on pro-democracy activists overseas got here after the publication of a China report from the U.S. Congressional-Govt Fee on China (CECC) simply days earlier. The report acknowledged that Hong Kong has change into “practically indistinguishable from another neon-lit metropolis on the Chinese language mainland” and that Hong Kong authorities “might now be extra zealous than their mainland counterparts in implementing nationwide safety legal guidelines.”

On Dec. 26, the State Division described the extraterritorial utility of Hong Kong’s nationwide safety legal guidelines as a type of “transnational repression” that “threatens U.S. sovereignty and the human rights and elementary freedoms of individuals all around the world.”

The State Division additionally individually condemned the Chinese language regime for taking steps in opposition to two Canadian establishments and 20 folks concerned in human rights points regarding the Uyghurs and Tibet.

Andrew Chen, Frank Fang, and Eva Fu contributed to this report.