Well-known Hong Kong pro-democracy activist jumps bail at home to stay in Canada
HONG KONG — One of Hong Kong’s best-known pro-democracy activists, who moved to Canada to pursue her studies, said she would not return to the city to meet the bail conditions of her arrest under Beijing’s national security law, becoming the latest political figure to flee Hong Kong under Beijing’s crackdown on dissent.
Agnes Chow, a famous young face in the city’s once-vibrant pro-democracy movement, was arrested in 2020 under the national security law enacted by Beijing after 2019 anti-government protests. She was released on bail but also served more than six months in jail in a separate case over her role in the protests.
After Chow was released from prison in 2021, she had to regularly report to the police. She said in an Instagram post Sunday night that the pressure caused her “mental illnesses” and influenced her decision not to return to the city.
Many of her peers have been jailed, arrested, forced into self-exile or silenced after the introduction of the security law in 2020.
The suppression of the city’s pro-democracy movement highlights the drastic erosion of freedoms that had been promised to the former British colony when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997. Both the governments in Beijing and Hong Kong have hailed the security law as bringing back stability to the city.
Chow said the authorities in July offered to return her passport so she could pursue studies in Canada under the condition that she travel to mainland China with them. She agreed, she said, and her trip in August included a visit to an exhibition on China’s achievements and the headquarters of tech giant Tencent. The authorities later returned her passport.
Hong Kong’s leader says eight democracy activists living in the U.S. and elsewhere will be pursued for life for alleged national security offenses.
After considering the situation in Hong Kong, her safety and her health, Chow said she “probably won’t return” to the city again.
“I don’t want to be forced to do things that I don’t want to do anymore and be forced to visit mainland China again. If it continues, my body and my mind will collapse even though I am safe,” she wrote.
Chow told TV Tokyo on Monday that she was still weighing her next steps, including the option of seeking asylum in Canada, the broadcaster reported. Asked whether she would take up political activism there, she said she wanted to do something in Hong Kong’s interest, TV Tokyo said.
Hong Kong police Monday “strongly condemned” Chow’s move, without naming her, saying it was “against and challenging the rule of law.”
Hong Kong is preparing to introduce new middle school textbooks that will deny the Chinese territory was ever a British colony.
“Police urge the woman to immediately turn back before it is too late and not to choose a path of no return. Otherwise, she will bear the stigma of ‘fugitive’ for the rest of her life,” the police said in a statement.
Asked about Chow’s case at a daily briefing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said that Hong Kong was a law-based society and that any illegal acts would be punished.
Chow rose to fame with other prominent young activists Joshua Wong and Nathan Law as a student leader, including in pro-democracy protests in 2014.
She co-founded the now-defunct pro-democracy party Demosisto with Wong and Law, but the party was disbanded June 30, 2020, the same day the security law was enacted.
Wong is now in custody and faces a subversion charge that could result in life imprisonment if convicted. Law fled to Britain, and the Hong Kong police in July offered a reward of 1 million Hong Kong dollars ($127,600) for information leading to his arrest.
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