The Hong Kong government has summoned British and Australian envoys after both nations granted asylum to two prominent pro-democracy activists.
Britain granted asylum this weekend to Tony Chung, one of Hong Kong's youngest activists with a bounty of HK$1m (£94,900m) from the city’s police, while former legislator Ted Hui was granted refuge in Australia. Both activists fled the Asian financial hub fearing persecution under its draconian national security law.
Hong Kong accused the two countries of “harbouring criminals” and summoned Australian consul-general Gareth Williams and British envoy Brian Davidson to protest their respective asylum decisions.
Tony Chung, 24, revealed on social media that UK government had officially granted him refugee status and five years of residency in the UK. Mr Chung was arrested and sentenced to prison twice following his participation in pro-democracy protests in 2019 in Hong Kong.
He breached a supervision order and fled to the UK to seek asylum due to constant scrutiny in the Asian financial hub, which he said had put him under an "enormous amount of stress".
"After more than a year and a half of waiting, I can finally try to start a new life," Mr Chung wrote on Facebook. He posted a photo of a letter from the Home Office confirming his refugee status and residency in the country.
"This means that we accept you have a well-founded fear of persecution and therefore cannot return to your country...,” the letter read.
Mr Chung said his "future life holds many possibilities, but this kind of space brings me fear – the fear of planning the future".
"I was very happy when I first came to the UK. I am happy that after more than three years, I was finally able to speak for Hong Kong again.
"I did not allow myself to rest because I felt that I could not waste the space of free speech. My departure had to bring hope to Hong Kong people in different places," he added.
Mr Chung was sentenced to 43 months in prison in November 2021 on charges of secession and money laundering. Earlier, as a teenager, he was sentenced to four months in jail after being found guilty of insulting the Chinese national flag.
Mr Chung announced his asylum confirmation in the UK just a day after Ted Hui said he was granted refuge in Australia.
Mr Hui, a former Hong Kong parliamentarian, fled the city four years ago and first arrived in Europe in December 2020. In March 2021, he became the first Hong Kong politician to be granted a special travel exemption during coronavirus restrictions to enter Australia.
In 2022, Mr Hui was convicted in Hong Kong in his absence on charges of taking part in a pro-democracy protest and was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in jail.
On Saturday, Mr Hui said he had “received formal notification from the Australian Department of Home Affairs that I have been granted asylum in Australia”.
Hong Kong’s chief secretary Eric Chan said the city "opposes any country harbouring offenders in any form and is strongly dissatisfied with any conduct that harbours criminals under any pretext".
"[S]uch harbouring effectively allows certain individuals or organisations to be immune from legal consequences for their illegal acts, which is no different from granting a special privilege to break the law," he said, according to the city administration.
Mr Chan told the envoys that the arrest warrants were “fully justified, necessary and legitimate". "There is no question of political persecution in Hong Kong,” the government spokesperson said, according to the Hong Kong Free Post.
The Chinese government said Mr Hui was "an anti-China agitator who disrupts Hong Kong's order and is lawfully wanted by Hong Kong police".
China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning on Monday urged Australia to respect China's sovereignty and Hong Kong's rule of law. When asked about My Hui’s case she did not name Australia directly, but asked the country in question to "immediately cease interfering in Hong Kong affairs and China's internal affairs in any form", according to the Global Times.
Dozens of Hong Kong activists, lawyers and human rights defenders have left the city for the UK, Canada and Australia, fleeing the prospect of arrest and further persecution under the sweeping national security law imposed by Beijing in 2020 to quash a popular protest movement.
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