HONG KONG (AP) — Considered one of Hong Kong’s best-known pro-democracy activists, who moved to Canada to pursue additional research, stated she wouldn’t return to the town to satisfy her bail circumstances, changing into the most recent politician to flee Hong Kong beneath Beijing’s crackdown on dissidents.
Agnes Chow, a well-known younger face within the metropolis’s once-vibrant pro-democracy motion, was arrested in 2020 beneath a Beijing-imposed nationwide safety regulation that was enacted following 2019 anti-government protests. She was launched on bail but additionally served greater than six months in jail for a separate case over her function within the protests.
After Chow was released from prison in 2021 for that case, she needed to recurrently report back to the police. She stated in an Instagram publish on Sunday evening that the strain brought about her “psychological sicknesses” and influenced her determination to not return to the town.
Lots of her friends have been jailed, arrested, compelled into self-exile or silenced after the introduction of the safety regulation in 2020.
The suppression of the town’s pro-democracy motion highlights that freedoms promised to the previous British colony when it returned to China in 1997 have been eroded drastically. However Beijing and Hong Kong have hailed the safety regulation for bringing again stability to the semi-autonomous Chinese language metropolis.
Chow stated the authorities in July provided to return her passport for her to pursue research in Canada beneath the situation that she would journey to mainland China with them. She agreed, she stated, and her journey in August included a go to to an exhibition on China’s achievements and the headquarters of tech large Tencent. The authorities later returned her passport to her.
After contemplating the scenario in Hong Kong, her security and her well being, Chow stated she “most likely will not return” to the town once more.
“I do not wish to be compelled to do issues that I do not wish to do anymore and be compelled to go to mainland China once more. If it continues, my physique and my thoughts will collapse regardless that I’m secure,” she wrote.
Chow stated in an interview broadcast on TV Tokyo on Monday that she was nonetheless weighing her subsequent steps, together with the choice of looking for asylum in Canada. Requested whether or not she would take up political activism there, she stated she wished to do one thing in Hong Kong’s curiosity.
Hong Kong police on Monday “strongly condemned” Chow’s transfer, with out naming her, saying it was “in opposition to and difficult the rule of regulation.”
“Police urge the girl to instantly flip again earlier than it’s too late and never to decide on a path of no return. In any other case, she is going to bear the stigma of ‘fugitive’ for the remainder of her life,” the police stated in an announcement.
The police didn’t reply to questions from The Related Press on Chow’s mainland China journey.
Chow rose to fame with different distinguished younger activists Joshua Wong and Nathan Legislation as a pupil chief for his or her activism within the 2010s, together with pro-democracy protests in 2014.
She co-founded the now-defunct pro-democracy celebration Demosisto with Wong and Legislation, however the celebration was disbanded on June 30, 2020, the identical day the safety regulation was enacted.
Wong is now in custody and faces a subversion cost that might lead to life imprisonment if convicted. Legislation fled to Britain and the police in July provided a reward of 1 million Hong Kong {dollars} ($127,600) for info resulting in his arrest.
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