Anna Kwok’s father imprisoned for cancelling an insurance policy he took out for her when she was an infant…
His daughter lives in the US and has been wanted by national security police for suspected foreign collusion since 2023.
Handing down the jail term, Acting Principal Magistrate Andy Cheng said the offence – under the city’s homegrown security law – was serious and that Kwok had showed no remorse.
He acknowledged that Kwok did not do anything that directly endangered national security, and that the funds – if successfully withdrawn – would only be used by the defendant.
So how was it serious?
As Brian Kern points out, the prison sentence will cause anguish not only for 69-year-old Kwok Yin-sang himself, but to his daughter…
In fact, at least 51 relatives in Hong Kong are known to have been detained for interrogation in relation to the arrest warrants and bounties. They were brought into police stations and interrogated usually for several hours before being released. But taking the next step and imprisoning one of them represents a significant escalation.
…Now the regime was threatening to make their loved ones pay for their “transgressions.” And a form of hostage-taking commenced. But the problem was, if all it was doing was taking their family members in for questioning, overseas Hong Kongers would get used to that and not be terribly frightened. So it had to go a step farther. Thus, Anna’s father’s case.
…First of all it’s because family members are not doing anything that the regime can frame as crimes. And secondly, to show just how arbitrary the regime can be: it’s saying, we can get your relatives for anything at any time, so you had better be quiet or your loved one will pay.
From CNN…
“There is no such thing as … collective punishment, and it has absolutely nothing to do with whether the defendant and the fugitive are family,” [Magistrate] Cheng said.
Anna Kwok talks about the verdict on a YouTube vid.
Story also being covered by Reuters, BBC, NYT, etc, etc.
One of the aims of US-based exiled activists like Anna Kwok is the barring of Hong Kong’s Economics and Trade Offices. An op-ed in The Diplomat explains…
…the HKETOs in Washington, D.C., New York, and San Francisco are engaging in activities that strengthen the Chinese government’s influence in the United States. They promote Beijing’s narratives and propaganda, counter-lobby against human rights legislation, and court federal, state, and local officials as well as business leaders and others. Don’t be fooled; the HKETOs are not neutral trade bureaucracies. They have a benign-sounding label that obscures their political function, allowing them to gain unique access and influence with U.S. corporations and in our states and cities.
From Niao Collective, a collection of threads on Hong Kong protest art. And New Lines magazine on the emergence of Japanese anime in protest-related memes worldwide.