Some Hong Kong independence activists have said that they might be forced to leave the territory if a proposed extradition law allowing suspects to be sent to China for trial is enacted.
The government wants the Hong Kong Legislative Council to quickly pass the fugitive offenders ordinance bill, which would allow case-by-case transfers of people to countries without extradition treaties, including China.
The bill says that extradition cannot be used for political and religious offenses, and that safeguards such as court oversight over extradition requests would ensure rights are upheld.
However, Hong Kong’s small band of independence activists — who have railed against China’s tightening grip on their territory’s autonomy and freedoms, and have said that Hong Kong should be its own country — sense peril.
“In the future, no matter which fugitives China seeks to extradite, Hong Kong won’t be able to say no,” said Alan Li (李東昇), a 27-year-old former leader of independence group Hong Kong Indigenous.
Li is in Germany after being granted political asylum there in a landmark case that has underscored growing international concern about Hong Kong’s activists.
“We can’t trust the Hong Kong government,” he added.
Li and 25-year-old activist Ray Wong (黃台仰) ended up in refugee camps in Germany after skipping bail on rioting charges linked to a violent standoff with police in Hong Kong on Feb. 8, 2016.
“We will see more and more people being granted political asylum in the future,” Li said via telephone from Germany, adding that it was a rigorous process.
At least 23 activists from the February 2016 protest have been jailed for up to seven years.
Critics have said that those are unusually harsh sentences for breaching colonial-era rioting laws not used since the late 1960s.
China considers Hong Kong to be an “inalienable” part of the country, so calls for independence are anathema to Chinese Communist Party leaders.
However, freedom of expression and assembly — not protected in China — were enshrined in Hong Kong’s mini-constitution when the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Britain and Canada on Thursday last week said in a news release that the extradition bill could hurt local freedoms.
China’s Hong Kong Liaison Office Director Zhang Xiaoming (張曉明) has said that Beijing respects the territory’s freedoms, but that there is “zero tolerance” for activists who seek to undermine China’s sovereignty.
The disconnect between what is allowed in Hong Kong, but harshly punished in China has added pressure to independence activists. Chinese leaders dub them “separatists” — a pursuit that would make them criminals in China.
Paladin Cheng (鄭俠), an outspoken leader of the independence movement who lives alone in a ramshackle rooftop apartment in Hong Kong, said that if the government does not scrap the law, there could be a backlash.
“This China rendition law represents the mainlandization of Hong Kong,” said Cheng, whom police often follow on the streets and during protests.
“If the Chinese government really continues to make Hong Kong more similar to the mainland, even more people will support the idea of Hong Kong independence,” he said.
The independence movement peaked in 2016, when two pro-independence activists, Baggio Leung (梁頌恆) and Yau Wai-ching (游蕙禎), won Legislative Council seats, earning 7 percent of the popular vote in some districts.
Since then, authorities have moved to shut localists out of politics.
Leung and Yau were removed from the council, dozens of others have been kept from running in local elections and one pro-independence group was banned last year on national security grounds.
“The atmosphere was really bad, and up to today, nothing has changed. Many of my friends have been harassed, imprisoned, or forced into exile,” 32-year-old Leung said.
Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) said in announcing the ban that it was necessary on the grounds of national security, public order and public safety.
She has also emphasized that Hong Kong respects electoral freedoms.
Leung said that on Dec. 31 last year, five men forced their way into an office run by fellow activists, smashing open the door and taking some flags.
After reviewing surveillance footage of the incident, he filed a police report.
A Hong Kong Police Force spokesman confirmed a break-in had occurred, but said that no one has been arrested.
German Federal Foreign Office spokeswoman Maria Adebahr said that Berlin was “increasingly worried about the shrinking space the opposition enjoys and the creeping erosion of the freedom of opinion.”
She declined to specifically discuss Li’s case.
Some activists think that the extradition law, even if not immediately deployed against them, would still weigh psychologically.
“The Chinese Communist Party and Hong Kong government have hinted several times that whoever is anti-Communist will be a target,” 29-year-old independence advocate Wayne Chan (陳家駒) said. “Pro-independence parties may be forced into exile.”
Despite the potential danger, some activists have said that they would stay and fight.
“No one knows what is next for Hong Kong,” said Tony Chung (鍾翰林), an 18-year-old who was assaulted twice on the streets last year by four men who were later arrested.
The men are free on bail; police said that they are investigating.
Chung was last month arrested for grabbing a small Chinese flag at a protest and breaking the stick. He was charged with criminal damage, which can be punished by up to 10 years in prison.
“Hong Kong has changed completely from the place I knew,” he said. “But I don’t want to give up and leave right now.”
Additional reporting by Sabine Siebold in Berlin
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