Hong Kong democracy activist ends life of fear with UK arrival

HONG KONG democracy activist Tony Chung said on Friday he had fled to Britain to seek asylum because he could no longer endure living in fear in the Beijing-controlled territory.

In 2021, Chung, then 20, became the youngest person to be imprisoned under Hong Kong’s sweeping national security law. He pleaded guilty to “secession” and was sentenced to three and a half years in prison.

Chung has lived in daily fear since his release in June, according to a statement posted on his social media early Friday but dated Dec 27.

Blocked from taking up work, Chung said “the national security police officers kept on coercing and inducing me to join them”.

“They proposed providing informant fees, urging me to supply information about others as proof of my reformation and willingness to cooperate.”

The intimidation faced by Hong Kong dissidents like Chung reflects the drastic erosion of the freedoms promised to the former British colony when it was returned to China in 1997.

The territory’s national security law, imposed after mass pro-democracy protests kicked off in 2019, ushered in draconian punishments for vague offences.

It effectively outlawed free speech and dissent and has routinely been used to target pro-democracy activists, many of whom have since been jailed or forced into exile.

Chung said he got permission to leave Hong Kong by saying he wanted to go on holiday in Okinawa, Japan, and sought help once outside Chinese soil.

“As I publish this statement, I have safely arrived in the United Kingdom and have formally applied for political asylum upon entry,” he wrote.

Authorities have issued bounties for 13 pro-democracy activists abroad this year.

Chung was previously the convenor of the now-disbanded Student Localism,

a small group he set up five years ago as a secondary school pupil to advocate for Hong Kong’s independence.

In 2020, Chung was nabbed by plainclothes police from a coffee shop opposite the US consulate, where he was allegedly planning to seek asylum.

Since October, he had “intermittently fallen ill” following his release from prison, and doctors diagnosed him with “significant mental stress”.

Authorities compelled him to sign an order banning him from public speaking, and disseminating anything related to his conviction or deemed a danger to national security, Chung said. He was also stopped from seeking legal assistance.

While Chung said it was impossible for him to return home in the foreseeable future, he still hoped to “do something” for the territory from the UK.

“I believe that as long as the Hong Kong people never give up, the seeds of freedom and democracy will sprout alive again,” he said.