TOP NEWS
The British parliament hosted an urgent debate Tuesday after former Home Secretary Dame Priti Patel and Mark Sewards MP asked the government to respond to the issuing of HK$1 million bounties on four UK-based pro-democracy campaigners, including Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong (CFHK) Foundation staffer Chloe Cheung.
Minister for the Indo-Pacific Catherine West responded by saying that the UK will not tolerate any attempts by foreign governments to coerce, intimidate, harass, or harm their critics overseas, but that the government must “balance” national security with the need to be an “outward-facing trading nation.”
Chloe Cheung said that to show genuine solidarity, the government should immediately invite her and other UK-based bountied individuals for a meeting so they can better understand and respond to transnational repression
Quoting Chloe Cheung’s CFHK Foundation statement, Lord Alton of Liverpool asked in a separate House of Lords debate if the government could reconcile its position on behalf of those Hong Kongers, like Chloe Cheung, regularly threatened by transnational repression on UK soil.
Picking up the story, The Nightly’s Latika Bourke quoted CFHK UK Director Mark Sabah: “The UK has nothing to gain by sacrificing the safety of Hong Kongers threatened by transnational repression for chimeric trade and investment rewards.” Sabah also appeared on TalkTV to discuss Reeves’ China visit
U.S. - Hong Kong
Radio Free Asia published a deep dive into the realities of exile faced by CFHK Foundation staffer Frances Hui and her fellow U.S-based Hong Kong activists, Joey Siu and Anna Kwok, all of whom have been tagged with HK$1 million bounties in retaliation for their pro-democracy activism.
'Troublemaker' Updates
“No crime, plenty of punishment” was The Economist verdict on Jimmy Lai’s trial in a fabulous article that praised CFHK Foundation President Mark L. Clifford’s book “The Troublemaker” as a “compelling biography with an eye for detail” that keeps public attention on Jimmy Lai’s trial.
You can catch Mark Clifford speaking on “The Troublemaker” in San Francisco at The Book Passage on January 14 and at Commonwealth Club on January 16.
UK - Hong Kong
Chancellor Rachel Reeves came under pressure to raise Hong Kong human rights issues during a trip to China that began Friday, with Amnesty International urging her to “demand the immediate release of British citizen and prisoner of conscience Jimmy Lai, human rights lawyer Chow Hang-tung and the 45 Hong Kong pro-democracy activists recently convicted of ‘conspiring to subvert state power’ in the city’s largest national security trial.”
In a blistering Spectator article, Ian Williams recounted a dozen reasons why Reeves’ visit is ill-conceived, noting that she will be accompanied by HSBC Chairman Mark Tucker, who has endorsed Hong Kong’s draconian national security law. The bank, which has extensive interests in China, “froze the accounts of democracy activists, claiming it had no choice but to obey local laws [and] has reportedly lobbied for China not to be designated as a threat under a new foreign influence registration scheme,” Williams wrote.
CFHK Foundation responded to a Times op-ed from Prof. Richard A. Williams, the principal of Scottish higher education institution Heriot-Watt, arguing that working with China's “academic and basic science powerhouse” was crucial for building a sustainable future. Drawing on the CFHK Foundation report “The Strategic Dependence of UK Universities on China,” Head of Communications David Green wrote that Prof. Williams “fundamentally misunderstands the concern about university collaboration with China,” which is predicated on the CCP doctrine of civil-military fusion aiming to create a military capable of invading Taiwan.
Hong Kong
CFHK Foundation on Friday condemned Lord Leonard Hoffmann, the longest-serving overseas judge on the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal, for renewing his contract for another three years, extending his tenure until the age of 94. Lord Hoffmann’s decision to stay on, along with fellow British judge Lord Neuberger and four Australian counterparts, undermines their judicial integrity and lends credibility to Hong Kong’s unjust crackdown on the pro-democracy movement.
We are deeply saddened to hear of the passing of former lawmaker and prison rights activist, Shiu Ka-Chun, aged 55. His dedication to democratic values, support for political prisoners, and service to the community was truly inspiring and he will be deeply missed.
Lawyer-turned-activist Chow Hang-tung, who has been behind bars since 2021 for helping to organise an annual vigil to mark Beijing's 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, called on five Hong Kong judges to stop their "complicity" in a "police state" during an appeal hearing Wednesday.
The global Hong Kong community on Monday marked the fourth anniversary of the arrests of 53 Hong Kong democrats for exercising their right to participate in a democratic primary. The CFHK Foundation launched a project to update our database of Hong Kong political prisoners and shared individual profiles of the Hong Kong 45 sentenced last November across our social media.
🔥Flame of Freedom Blog
Bearing Witness: Telling the Stories of Hong Kong’s Political Prisoners Through Our Prisoner Profiles Project
This blog is authored by Frances Hui, Policy and Advocacy Coordinator at the CFHK Foundation.
“They are not faceless names; they are our friends, mentors, and fellow freedom fighters. Our Political Prisoners Profiles project is an ongoing effort to put faces to our movement, to humanise those who have been silenced, personalise their stories, and remind the world of the CCP's brutal crackdown on Hong Kong's civil liberties.”
Read more here.
(Cover image credit: HKFP)
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