Hong Kong Watch and 20 other diaspora and human rights organisations, together with seven bountied Hong Kong activists in the UK, have issued a joint letter to UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, urging the UK government to urgently tackle transnational repression on British soil.
The letter, sent on 19 March 2025, marks the first anniversary after the passing of Hong Kong’s repressive homegrown national security law, the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance (SNSO), colloquially referred to as ‘Article 23’. The Ordinance contains broad extraterritoriality clauses which, in the words of Hong Kong Watch Advisor and former Director of Policy and Advocacy Sam Goodman, create “extensive powers available for transnational repression”. The SNSO has already been used to target overseas Hong Kong pro-democracy activists, with the cancellation of the Hong Kong passports of 13 activists now living in the UK, US and Australia.
In addition to the powers granted under the SNSO, the Hong Kong government has announced arrest warrants with HK$1 million (£99,000) bounties against 19 exiled Hong Kong activists under the Beijing-imposed 2020 National Security Law, including seven activists in the UK and Hong Kong Watch Advisors Finn Lau and Ted Hui. Under the powers granted by the SNSO, the Hong Kong government has frozen the bank accounts of wanted individuals and ordered Hong Kong residents not to engage in any financial transaction with them, or risk imprisonment.
In the letter, the signatories raise these and other concerns about intensifying transnational repression against the Hong Kong diaspora in the UK, and urges the UK government to honour its obligation to protect activists from transnational threats.
It urges the UK government to take concrete steps to tackle transnational repression in the UK, such as by establishing a dedicated reporting mechanism and a hotline to handle reports and complaints related to transnational repression on UK soil, and ensuring all frontline law enforcement agencies, including the Police and Border Force, have the requisite understanding and capacity to tackle transnational repression effectively.
Finn Lau, Advisor to Hong Kong Watch and bountied activist, commented:
“The UK is home to hundreds of thousands of British National (Overseas) Hong Kongers who are concerned about the transnational reach of the Hong Kong Police Force, the Hong Kong government and the Chinese Communist Party to which it answers.
I know all too well that the UK government’s current response to the issue of transnational repression has been inadequate to ensure the physical safety and security of bountied individuals such as myself. I urge the Prime Minister to heed the recommendations in this letter and commit to protecting diaspora communities and activists living in the UK.”