Latest news with #ChloeCheung
The Guardian
a day ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
‘I don't expect to live a normal life': how a Leeds teenager woke up with a Chinese bounty on her head
It was Christmas Eve 2024 and 19-year-old Chloe Cheung was lying in bed at home in Leeds when she found out the Chinese authorities had put a bounty on her head. As she scrolled through Instagram looking at festive songs, a stream of messages from old school friends started coming into her phone. Look at the news, they told her. Media outlets across east Asia were reporting that Cheung, who had just finished her A-levels, had been declared a threat to national security by officials in Hong Kong. There was an offer of HK$1m (£94,000) to anyone who could assist in her arrest or capture. News reports included a photograph of her aged 11, seemingly the only picture officials had of her before she and her family left to resettle in the UK in 2020. 'I couldn't even really recognise myself,' she says. Cheung says she was still in a state of shock as friends started jokingly congratulating her on her infamy. After finishing school, she had been working as a communications assistant for a campaign group in the UK that advocates for democracy in Hong Kong. She could barely believe that Chinese officials would care about a teenager living thousands of miles away. Yet, as friends started unfollowing her on social media, the life-changing consequences of what had just happened became clear. 'They were saying 'sorry, but you are a criminal in Hong Kong now so we can't be associated with you.' Even friends here in Leeds said they would have to stop seeing me as they wanted to be able to go back to Hong Kong,' she says. Cheung had dreamed of a gap year travelling the world and visiting friends in Hong Kong. Neither was possible now, after Chinese officials vowed to 'pursue for life' Cheung and others they accuse of promoting democracy. Beijing has a history of targeting critics in exile and pressuring countries to detain and deport them. 'The bounty will follow me for ever. It's a form of psychological warfare – telling the world that dissent has no safe haven. Even if you were just a teenager when you spoke out, you're not safe,' says Cheung. But if China's aim was to dissuade her from taking a public stance on Hong Kong or criticising it, it has not worked. Cheung says she has no intention of staying quiet. Growing up in Hong Kong, Cheung says she always felt patriotic and used to 'love running home for the flag-raising ceremony that happened on TV at 6.30pm'. But that all changed in 2019-20 when millions of people took to the streets of Hong Kong. The demonstrators were protesting against the increasingly autocratic authority of Beijing and the control it wanted to exert over the former British territory, which since 1997 has been classified as a 'special administrative region' – part of Chinese territory but governed under separate rules and laws to the mainland. Transnational repression is the state-led targeting of refugees, dissidents and ordinary citizens living in exile. It involves the use of electronic surveillance, physical assault, intimidation and threats against family members to silence criticism. The Guardian's Rights and freedom series is publishing a series of articles to highlight the dangers faced by citizens in countries including the UK. Until then, Hong Kong had been allowed a degree of autonomy from mainland China, including a partially democratically elected executive and an independent media. From 2020, after several years of pro-democracy protests known as the 'umbrella revolution', Beijing began to impose closer control over the territory, including changing election laws so that only pro-Beijing 'patriots' could run for office, and introducing extradition powers allowing it to transfer fugitives to the mainland. The constitutional principle of 'one country, two systems', agreed with the British before the handover in 1997, was abandoned, with Hong Kong's pro-democracy parties later disbanding as the possibility of peaceful political change receded. 'At the time I attended my first protest [in 2019], I was expecting it to be completely peaceful because I was taught at school that we have freedom of speech and press in Hong Kong,' Cheung recalls. 'Then suddenly, the police started shooting teargas and rubber bullets at us and started arresting people really violently; dragging protesters and standing on their necks. I was just 14 and my worldview completely changed. 'I realised whatever we had been learning in school was a lie,' she says. 'I'd been brainwashed. I felt helpless and fooled.' Sign up to Global Dispatch Get a different world view with a roundup of the best news, features and pictures, curated by our global development team after newsletter promotion Thousands of protesters and opponents of the new powers were arrested and charged in a brutal crackdown that led to condemnation from countries including the UK, which offered residents in Hong Kong the chance to resettle. Although her parents were not political, Cheung says they could see that it was better for her and her younger brother's future to move to the UK. Her family, says Cheung, 'knew I was someone who doesn't know how to shut up. They didn't want either of us to end up in prison for speaking our mind, because my mum said, 'You are kind of nobody. No one would know that you're in prison.'' The family arrived in Leeds in 2020, where Cheung, then 15, threw herself into studying for her GCSEs. With the UK going through Covid lockdowns, she spent most of her time at home catching up on the syllabus and practising past exam papers. After a successful first year, she went on to study maths, further maths and economics for A-level. Her first taste of activism outside Hong Kong came at 18 after she made a submission to the UN on the experiences of women during the 2019-20 protests in the city. She was later invited to the UN office in Geneva to join an NGO meeting on the topic. It was here that she met members of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong, which advocates for democracy. 'At that point I knew I could not afford to go to university yet [as she would have to pay the higher overseas tuition fees] so asked the committee if I could take a job working for them,' she says. 'I didn't imagine it would be a career and when I was hired it was just on a short-term contract, more or less as an intern,' says Cheung. 'I was happy just to save up money.' She soon began taking on a more public role at the committee, speaking to MPs and journalists while using her real name. She thinks it was this that irked Chinese officials. 'I spoke with a lot of media and my quotes were used as someone who was born and grew up in Hong Kong and so with a personal connection. The authorities saw that and intentionally want to target people who have got a profile.' After the bounty and warrant for her arrest were announced, Cheung says she did consider taking herself out of the public spotlight. 'But I thought if I do this now everyone will know it is because I am scared and giving up,' she says. 'They [China] want to stop others from speaking out publicly, but I know I am fortunate to have my family here in the UK.' However, it has not been easy. Cheung has faced an onslaught of sexual harassment and abuse via social media and was followed by two 'suspicious-looking' Chinese men to a restaurant after an event. She reported the incident to the police. She has had to change her address and is now cautious about meeting new people. In 2022, a pro-democracy protester demonstrating on the pavement was dragged into China's consulate in Manchester before being beaten up in a 'barbaric' attack. 'It was certainly because a UK police officer broke diplomatic protocol and stepped into the grounds of the consulate to save him that something worse didn't happen to that protester,' she says. 'He could have disappeared. It's just a matter of time before someone is kidnapped or killed, given how much China is escalating their overseas repression.' Aside from her personal safety, Cheung realises her public profile is now limiting her future choices in life. 'I have shut off a lot of job opportunities with any company that has business ties or trade with China. They won't hire me now. 'I don't expect to live a normal life, but compared with the people in prison back in Hong Kong, my sacrifice is nothing. I really want to see a free Hong Kong so if my public role can help the situation a little bit, it will be worthwhile.' A spokesperson for the government of the Hong Kong special administrative region said Cheung was an 'absconder hiding in the UK' and wanted for 'blatantly engaging in activities endangering national security'. They added that she would be 'pursued regardless of distance'.
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
‘I don't expect to live a normal life': how a Leeds teenager woke up with a Chinese bounty on her head
It was Christmas Eve 2024 and 19-year-old Chloe Cheung was lying in bed at home in Leeds when she found out the Chinese authorities had put a bounty on her head. As she scrolled through Instagram looking at festive songs, a stream of messages from old school friends started coming into her phone. Look at the news, they told her. Media outlets across east Asia were reporting that Cheung, who had just finished her A-levels, had been declared a threat to national security by officials in Hong Kong. There was an offer of HK$1m (£94,000) to anyone who could assist in her arrest or capture. News reports included a photograph of her aged 11, seemingly the only picture officials had of her before she and her family left to resettle in the UK in 2020. 'I couldn't even really recognise myself,' she says. Cheung says she was still in a state of shock as friends started jokingly congratulating her on her infamy. After finishing school, she had been working as a communications assistant for a campaign group in the UK that advocates for democracy in Hong Kong. She could barely believe that Chinese officials would care about a teenager living thousands of miles away. Yet, as friends started unfollowing her on social media, the life-changing consequences of what had just happened became clear. 'They were saying 'sorry, but you are a criminal in Hong Kong now so we can't be associated with you.' Even friends here in Leeds said they would have to stop seeing me as they wanted to be able to go back to Hong Kong,' she says. Cheung had dreamed of a gap year travelling the world and visiting friends in Hong Kong. Neither was possible now, after Chinese officials vowed to 'pursue for life' Cheung and others they accuse of promoting democracy. Beijing has a history of targeting critics in exile and pressuring countries to detain and deport them. 'The bounty will follow me for ever. It's a form of psychological warfare – telling the world that dissent has no safe haven. Even if you were just a teenager when you spoke out, you're not safe,' says Cheung. But if China's aim was to dissuade her from taking a public stance on Hong Kong or criticising it, it has not worked. Cheung says she has no intention of staying quiet. Growing up in Hong Kong, Cheung says she always felt patriotic and used to 'love running home for the flag-raising ceremony that happened on TV at 6.30pm'. But that all changed in 2019-20 when millions of people took to the streets of Hong Kong. The demonstrators were protesting against the increasingly autocratic authority of Beijing and the control it wanted to exert over the former British territory, which since 1997 has been classified as a 'special administrative region' – part of Chinese territory but governed under separate rules and laws to the mainland. Transnational repression is the state-led targeting of refugees, dissidents and ordinary citizens living in exile. It involves the use of electronic surveillance, physical assault, intimidation and threats against family members to silence criticism. The Guardian's Rights and freedom series is publishing a series of articles to highlight the dangers faced by citizens in countries including the UK. Until then, Hong Kong had been allowed a degree of autonomy from mainland China, including a partially democratically elected executive and an independent media. From 2020, after several years of pro-democracy protests known as the 'umbrella revolution', Beijing began to impose closer control over the territory, including changing election laws so that only pro-Beijing 'patriots' could run for office, and introducing extradition powers allowing it to transfer fugitives to the mainland. The constitutional principle of 'one country, two systems', agreed with the British before the handover in 1997, was abandoned, with Hong Kong's pro-democracy parties later disbanding as the possibility of peaceful political change receded. 'At the time I attended my first protest, I was expecting it to be completely peaceful because I was taught at school that we have freedom of speech and press in Hong Kong,' Cheung recalls. 'Then suddenly, the police started shooting teargas and rubber bullets at us and started arresting people really violently; dragging protesters and standing on their necks. I was just 14 and my worldview completely changed. 'I realised whatever we had been learning in school was a lie,' she says. 'I'd been brainwashed. I felt helpless and fooled.' Sign up to Global Dispatch Get a different world view with a roundup of the best news, features and pictures, curated by our global development team after newsletter promotion Thousands of protesters and opponents of the new powers were arrested and charged in a brutal crackdown that led to condemnation from countries including the UK, which offered residents in Hong Kong the chance to resettle. Although her parents were not political, Cheung says they could see that it was better for her and her younger brother's future to move to the UK. Her family, says Cheung, 'knew I was someone who doesn't know how to shut up. They didn't want either of us to end up in prison for speaking our mind, because my mum said, 'You are kind of nobody. No one would know that you're in prison.'' The family arrived in Leeds in 2020, where Cheung, then 15, threw herself into studying for her GCSEs. With the UK going through Covid lockdowns, she spent most of her time at home catching up on the syllabus and practising past exam papers. After a successful first year, she went on to study maths, further maths and economics for A-level. Her first taste of activism outside Hong Kong came at 18 after she made a submission to the UN on the experiences of women during the 2019-20 protests in the city. She was later invited to the UN office in Geneva to join an NGO meeting on the topic. It was here that she met members of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong, which advocates for democracy. 'At that point I knew I could not afford to go to university yet [as she would have to pay the higher overseas tuition fees] so asked the committee if I could take a job working for them,' she says. 'I didn't imagine it would be a career and when I was hired it was just on a short-term contract, more or less as an intern,' says Cheung. 'I was happy just to save up money.' She soon began taking on a more public role at the committee, speaking to MPs and journalists while using her real name. She thinks it was this that irked Chinese officials. 'I spoke with a lot of media and my quotes were used as someone who was born and grew up in Hong Kong and so with a personal connection. The authorities saw that and intentionally want to target people who have got a profile.' After the bounty and warrant for her arrest were announced, Cheung says she did consider taking herself out of the public spotlight. 'But I thought if I do this now everyone will know it is because I am scared and giving up,' she says. 'They [China] want to stop others from speaking out publicly, but I know I am fortunate to have my family here in the UK.' However, it has not been easy. Cheung has faced an onslaught of sexual harassment and abuse via social media and was followed by two 'suspicious-looking' Chinese men to a restaurant after an event. She reported the incident to the police. She has had to change her address and is now cautious about meeting new people. In 2022, a pro-democracy protester demonstrating on the pavement was dragged into China's consulate in Manchester before being beaten up in a 'barbaric' attack. 'It was certainly because a UK police officer broke diplomatic protocol and stepped into the grounds of the consulate to save him that something worse didn't happen to that protester,' she says. 'He could have disappeared. It's just a matter of time before someone is kidnapped or killed, given how much China is escalating their overseas repression.' Aside from her personal safety, Cheung realises her public profile is now limiting her future choices in life. 'I have shut off a lot of job opportunities with any company that has business ties or trade with China. They won't hire me now. 'I don't expect to live a normal life, but compared with the people in prison back in Hong Kong, my sacrifice is nothing. I really want to see a free Hong Kong so if my public role can help the situation a little bit, it will be worthwhile.' A spokesperson for the government of the Hong Kong special administrative region said Cheung was an 'absconder hiding in the UK' and wanted for 'blatantly engaging in activities endangering national security'. They added that she would be 'pursued regardless of distance'.
Forbes
30-07-2025
- Politics
- Forbes
British Parliamentarians Warn About Transnational Repression In The U.K.
[Stock photo] View of Big Ben and Houses of Parliament in Westminster, London, as thunderclouds loom ... More over the capital. (Photo credit: Dinendra Haria/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) On July 30, 2025, a Parliamentary committee in the United Kingdom published a report warning about the ever-growing issue of transnational repression on British soil. The report produced by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, a committee consisting of members of both Houses of Parliament (House of Commons and House of Lords), to examine matters relating to human rights within the United Kingdom, found that foreign governments are being increasingly bold in attempts to silence and intimidate individuals and communities in the U.K. Transnational repression refers to a range of tactics that foreign governments employ to reach beyond their borders to harm, intimidate, threaten, harass, or coerce individuals. Transnational repression may take various forms, including, but not limited to, stalking, online disinformation campaigns, harassment, intimidation or threats, threatening or detaining family members or friends in the country of origin, abusive legal practices, cyberhacking, among others. Those targeted often include political dissidents, activists, journalists, and political opponents, among others. The Committee received credible evidence that a number of states have engaged in acts of transnational repression on U.K. soil. These actions have a serious impact on those targeted, instilling fear, and limiting their freedom of expression and movement, among others. The Committee identified several countries which are notorious when it comes to targeting individuals in the U.K., including China, Russia and Iran. As the report explains, China has been resorting to tactics such as surveillance, online harassment, and threats to family members abroad as means of transnational repression. China has also placed 'bounties' on several individuals, offering a $HK1 million reward for information leading to their capture abroad. Among their targets is Chloe Cheung, a 19-year-old, who is sought by Hong Kong authorities for alleged violations of the controversial National Security Law. The report further warns that China operates unofficial Chinese 'police stations' in the U.K. They are said to monitor and pressure members of the Chinese diaspora. Russia, on the other hand, is accused of misusing INTERPOL Red Notices and Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP) to intimidate and silence journalists, activists, and other critics. This is in addition to Russia conducting attacks on individuals on British soil, including the Salisbury nerve agent attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal, among others. Iran has been resorting to assassination plots, physical attacks, intimidation of family members, asset freezing, judicial proceedings, smear campaigns, online abuse, surveillance and digital attacks such as hacking, doxing and impersonation, targeting individuals in the U.K. Iranian 'cultural centers' are said to be used as fronts for surveillance operations targeting members of the Iranian diaspora. Journalists covering the situation in Iran are at particular risk and have been subjected to some of the most aggressive forms of transnational repression. As Reporters without Borders is quoted in the report: 'Iranian women journalists have been subjected to gendered and sexualized abuse, including explicit threats of rape or sexual violence towards them or their families (including children), the circulation of fake stories designed to ruin their reputations and photoshopped pornographic images.' Other countries accused of using transnational repression in the U.K. include Bahrain, Egypt, Eritrea, India, Pakistan, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Despite the litany of cases, especially as seen in recent years, the Committee warns that the U.K. currently lacks a clear strategy to address the issue of transnational repression. There is no formal definition of transnational repression in the U.K., and the government does not routinely collect data on such targeting, and in turn, authorities cannot understand the scale and nature of the threat in the U.K. Furthermore, police officers often lack the training necessary to respond effectively to transnational repression, resulting in inconsistent and ineffective support for transnational repression victims. Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, Lord David Alton of Liverpool, commented: 'The U.K. should be a place of sanctuary and safety; however, we are concerned that there is a growth of foreign repression on U.K. soil that is going unchecked. This risks undermining the U.K.'s ability to protect the human rights of its citizens and those who have sought safety within its borders. We have seen prominent cases of Hong Kongers with bounties placed on their heads, Iran intimidating journalists, but evidence submitted to the inquiry suggests this may be the tip of the iceberg.' The issue of transnational repression requires comprehensive responses. The Joint Committee on Human Rights identified several important recommendations to help the U.K. deal with the issue. While direct at the U.K., many of the recommendations are transferable and should be adopted by other States too.
New York Times
20-02-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Chinese Embassy Plan in London Sets Off Opposition
It was the site of Britain's Royal Mint, where coins were struck from 1810 to 1975. It sits atop the ruins of a Cistercian abbey dating to the 14th century, as well as a burial ground from the Black Death. And from the 16th century to the early 18th century, it was a supply yard for the Royal Navy. Now the storied compound known as Royal Mint Court is on the brink of a new chapter as the home of the Chinese Embassy in London. If Britain's Labour government approves the project, as seems likely, China will move its embassy from its current quarters in Marylebone to an imposing, 5.5-acre complex across town, which would be the largest diplomatic outpost in Europe. Handing Beijing such a prime piece of real estate, next to the Tower of London and in the shadow of the skyscrapers of London's City, has set off a storm of opposition from neighborhood residents, China hawks in the British Parliament and Hong Kong democracy advocates who have resettled in Britain. Some say China could use the embassy, with its proximity to strategic fiber-optic cables that snake under the financial district, to spy on dissidents and ordinary Britons. Others claim its location, on a busy road just off the Tower Bridge, would make it hard for crowds to gather to protest issues like Beijing's crackdown on Hong Kong or its persecution of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang. 'This is not just a building; this is an extension of the Chinese Communist Party's power in the U.K.,' said Chloe Cheung, a representative of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, a pro-democracy group, as she spoke to more than 1,000 protesters who rallied at the site this month. Protesters this month outside Royal Mint Court, site of the proposed Chinese Embassy in London. Credit... Carlos Jasso/Reuters Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
16-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The A-level student who became an enemy of the Chinese state
Just over a year ago, Chloe Cheung was sitting her A-levels. Now she's on a Chinese government list of wanted dissidents. The choir girl-turned-democracy activist woke up to news in December that police in Hong Kong had issued a $HK1 million ($100,000; £105,000) reward for information leading to her capture abroad. "I actually just wanted to take a gap year after school," Chloe, 19, who lives in London, told the BBC. "But I've ended up with a bounty!" Chloe is the youngest of 19 activists accused of breaching a national security law introduced by Beijing in response to huge pro-democracy protests in the former British colony five years ago. In 2021, she and her family moved to the UK under a special visa scheme for Hong Kongers. She can probably never return to her home city and says she has to be careful about where she travels. Her protest work has made her a fugitive of the Chinese state, a detail not lost on me as we meet one icy morning in the café in the crypt of Westminster Abbey. In medieval England, churches provided sanctuary from arrest. Hong Kong officials issued the warrant for Chloe on Christmas Eve, using the only photo they appear to have on file for her – in which she is aged 11. "It freaked me out at first," she says, but then she issued a public response. "I didn't want the government to think I was scared. Because if Hong Kongers in Hong Kong can't speak out for themselves any more, then we outside of the city - who can speak freely without fear- we have to speak up for them." Chloe attended her first protests with her school friends, in the early days of Hong Kong's 2019 demonstrations. Protesters turned out in huge numbers against a bill seen as extending China's control over the territory, which had enjoyed semi-autonomy since Britain handed it back in 1997. "Politics were never in my life before… so I went to the first protest with curiosity," she said. She saw police tear-gassing demonstrators and an officer stepping on a protester's neck. "I was so shocked," she says. "That moment actually changed how I looked at the world." Growing up in a city that was part of China but that had retained many of its freedoms – she had thought Hong Kongers could talk about "what we like and don't like" and "could decide what Hong Kong's future looked like". But the violent crackdown by authorities made her realise that wasn't the case. She began joining protests, at first without her parents' knowledge. "I didn't tell them at the time because they didn't care [about politics]," she says. But when things started to get "really crazy", she browbeat her parents into coming with her. At the march, police fired tear gas at them and they had to run away into the subway. Her parents got the "raw experience", she says, not the version they'd seen blaming protesters on TV. Afters months of demonstrations, Beijing passed the National Security Law in 2020. Suddenly, most of the freedoms that had set Hong Kong apart from mainland China - freedom of expression, the right to political assemblies – were gone. Symbols of democracy in the city, including statues and independent newspapers, were torn down, shut or erased. Those publicly critical of the government - from teachers to millionaire moguls like British citizen Jimmy Lai - faced trials and eventually, jail. In response to the crackdown, the UK opened its doors to Hong Kongers under a new scheme, the British National Overseas (BNO) visa. Chloe's family were some of the first to take up the offer, settling in Leeds, which offered the cheapest Airbnb they could find. Chloe had to do her GCSEs halfway through the school term, and during a pandemic lockdown. At first, she felt isolated. It was hard to make friends and she had trouble speaking English, she says. There were few other Hong Kongers around. Unable to afford international student fees of more than £20,000 a year, she took a job with the Committee for the Freedom of Hong Kong, a pro-democracy NGO. When China started putting bounties on dissidents' heads in 2023, they targeted prominent protest leaders and opposition politicians. Chloe at the time, still finishing her A-levels, thought was she too small-fry to ever be a target. Her inclusion underlines Beijing's determination to pursue activists overseas. The bounty puts a target on her back and encourages third parties to report on her actions in the UK, she says. China has been the leading country over the past decade trying to silence exiled dissidents around the world, according to a report this week. Another Hong Kong dissident who reported being assaulted in London blamed the attacks on Chinese government-linked actors. And last May, British police charged three men with gathering intelligence for Hong Kong and breaking into a home. One of the men was soon after found dead in unclear circumstances. "They're only interested in Hong Kongers because they want to scare off others," Chloe says. She says many of those who've moved over in recent years stay quiet, partly because they still have family in Hong Kong. "Most of the BNO visa holders told me this because they don't want to take risks," she says. "It's sad but we can't blame them." Bounty targets July 2023: Eight high profile activists are named including: Nathan Law, Anna Kwok and Finn Lau, former politicians Dennis Kwok and Ted Hui, lawyer and legal scholar Kevin Yam, unionist Mung Siu-tat, and online commentator Yuan Gong-yi. December 2023: Simon Cheng, Frances Hui, Joey Siu, Johnny Fok and Tony Choi December 2024: Tony Chung, Carmen Lau, Chung Kim-wah, Chloe Cheung, Victor Ho Leung-mau On the day her arrest warrant was announced, Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the UK would not tolerate "any attempts by foreign governments to coerce, intimidate, harass or harm their critics overseas". He added the government was committed to supporting Hong Kongers in the UK. But more needs to be done, says Chloe, who's spent the first weeks of this year lobbying Westminster. In the past fortnight she has met Prime Minister Keir Starmer at a Lunar New Year event at Downing Street, and shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel, who later tweeted: "We must not give an inch to any transnational repression in the UK." But she worries whether the UK's recent overtures to China could mean fewer protections for Hong Kongers. "We just don't know what will happen to us, and whether the British government will protect us if they really want to protect their trade relationship with China." Does she feel scared on the streets in London? It's not as bad as what political activists back home are facing. "When I think of what [they] face… it's actually not that big a deal that I got a bounty overseas." Tony Chung, was imprisoned after advocating for the territory's independence. Even after his release, he said, his situation remained oppressive. Silenced and erased, Hong Kong's decade of protest is now a defiant memory Hong Kong jails 45 pro-democracy campaigners for subversion 'Becoming a totalitarian state': UK judge on why he quit Hong Kong court
