Not a good look

From HKFP…

The father of Hong Kong democrat Anna Kwok has been found guilty of handling funds linked to an “absconder” – the first family member of a wanted activist to be convicted of a national security offence.

Kwok Yin-sang, 69, appeared at the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts on Wednesday morning, wearing a dark green suit jacket and a respirator mask.

He was accused of attempting to obtain funds from an AIA International life and personal accident insurance policy that belonged to his daughter, Anna Kwok, who lives in the US. In 2023, Hong Kong’s national security police issued her and seven other self-exiled activists an arrest warrant for suspected foreign collusion.

Handling an absconder’s funds is an offence under the city’s homegrown security law, also known as Article 23.

Reuters report…

His daughter, Anna Kwok, helps lead the Washington-based advocacy group Hong Kong Democracy Council, and is one of 34 overseas activists wanted by Hong Kong national security police. She is accused of colluding with foreign forces and police have offered a bounty of HK$1 million ($127,400) for her arrest.

On her Facebook page, Anna Kwok said she is not and has never been the owner of the insurance policy, nor has she exchanged, received, or sought any “funds or other financial assets or economic resources” from her father, her family, or any individual or entity in Hong Kong.

“Today, my father was convicted and remanded in custody simply for being my father,” Anna Kwok said. “This is how the Hong Kong government retaliates against me and my community for our advocacy.”

…During the closing submission, defence lawyer Kwan argued that section 89 and 90 of Article 23 should not apply in a case where a person was simply handling an insurance policy he had purchased a long time ago for his children.

“This … is a form of prosecution based on family ties,” Kwan said.

From the NYT…

“Punishing a 68-year-old father for his daughter’s peaceful activism is an alarming act of collective punishment that has no place under international human rights law,” said Elaine Pearson, the Asia director for Human Rights Watch. She called the conviction “cruel and vindictive.”

…Mr. Kwok’s case is a first for Hong Kong, unlike in mainland China, where family members of political dissidents are routinely punished for their relatives’ perceived crimes. Since China imposed a national security law on Hong Kong, the city has seemingly applied mainland-style norms to political cases, activists and scholars say.

…In Mr. Kwok’s case, the authorities have focused on his attempt last year to terminate a life insurance policy he had bought for Ms. Kwok when she was 2.

Mr. Kwok’s lawyers argued that he did not violate the law because the insurance policy technically did not belong to Anna Kwok. They say she had not signed any forms to take over ownership of the policy from her father. The prosecution argued that the policy had been transferred to Ms. Kwok automatically when she turned 18. The policy is worth less than $12,000.

Was he supposed to not cancel the policy? Courts must impose custodial sentences in NatSec cases, so the only question is whether Mr Kwok gets a few days in prison or a year or more (or a more finely calibrated length in between). 

Security Secretary Chris Tang takes issue with the Washington Post…

…denouncing the newspaper’s recent editorial piece as “blatant lies” and “anti-China propaganda.”

The letter, sent February 11, responds to the Post’s February 9 editorial titled “A de facto death sentence for publishing a newspaper,” which criticized the sentencing of Jimmy Lai Chee-ying.

Tang accused the Editorial Board of ignoring evidence presented in Lai’s trial and attempting to “undermine the reputation of Hong Kong and our country.”

The security chief defended Lai’s 20-year prison sentence, asserting that Lai and eight defendants were prosecuted not for “publishing a newspaper” but for “serious offence related to endangering national security.”

…“Your claim of a ‘kangaroo court’ is wildly inaccurate and offensive,” Tang wrote in the letter to the Editorial Board of The Washington Post. “Again, I resort to the plain facts: 156 days of fair and impartial public hearings in open court attended by the public, media and observers from around the world; up to 2,220 exhibits as evidence; over 80,000 pages of documents and statements of evidence from 14 prosecution witnesses.”