November 27, 2024 (OTTAWA) - Frances Hui, Policy and Advocacy Coordinator for the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong (CFHK) Foundation, on Tuesday testified to the Canadian Parliament about her experiences of transnational repression at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Hui described how Beijing orchestrates global campaigns to silence dissent beyond China’s borders and spoke of the mental and physical impacts of living under the threat of state-directed harassment and intimidation.
Her remarks included examples of how CCP agents used intimidation, surveillance, and threats against her family members to bully Hui into silence. The December 2023 placing of a HK$1 million bounty on her head by Hong Kong’s National Security Police is itself an example of transnational repression, she said.
Speaking before the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, Hui urged Canada’s government to criminalise acts of transnational repression and revoke the special privileges afforded to the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (HKETO) in Toronto.
Since Hong Kong lost its autonomy from Beijing, HKETOs seek to spread CCP propaganda by whitewashing the situation in Hong Kong and coordinating surveillance of the Chinese diaspora in Canada, Hui said.
She also told Chair Fayçal El-Khoury MP and Vice-chairs Mike Lake MP and Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe MP that victims of transnational repression need better mental health support, and that Canadian law enforcement should step up information exchange with at-risk communities.
Her testimony was based on a U.S. Department of Justice indictment against a U.S. citizen for acting as an unauthorised agent of the People’s Republic of China government, and using CCP influence networks in the U.S. to carry out acts of repression.
“In one incident, he mobilised hundreds to harass us,” Hui said. “I was followed home and had to call the police. I regularly receive phone calls from men speaking Chinese.”
Frances Hui, Policy and Advocacy Coordinator, Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong (CFHK) Foundation said:
“This repression is carried out by multiple people under the direction of the United Front. Even though U.S. authorities identified the man stalking me, he has left the country and will never face justice. This was terrifying for me, and much more needs to be done.
“There is an impact on a personal level and an impact on communities living in a climate of fear as people decide not to speak up, or not to associate with people like me after I had a bounty on my head – out of fear they would be targeted.”