NEWSLETTER: CFHK Foundation Joins Activists in Protesting Hong Kong Official’s UK Visit
Committee News
The CFHK Foundation’s Communications Manager, Megan Khoo, spoke at a protest against Hong Kong’s Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Christopher Hui’s visit to the UK. Mr Hui's visit immediately followed Hong Kong Watch's reportthat reveals how Hong Kong and companies like HSBC have denied Hong Kongers from accessing £2.2 billion worth of their pensions. Mrs Khoo declared, in a city that holds more than 1,400 political prisoners including British citizen Jimmy Lai, “It is ‘absolutely ludicrous’ that Hui could still speak at Innovate Finance’s conference after the CFHK Foundation had spent a month calling on British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to revoke the Hong Kong officials’ invitation to the UK”, reported the Hong Kong Free Press.
The CFHK Foundation’s UK and EU Director, Mark Sabah, spoke with TalkTV’s Julia Hartley-Brewer about political prisoners worldwide, including the Russian Federation's recent arrests of political activist Vladimir Kara-Murza and The Wall Street Journal's Evan Gershkovich as well as the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) and Hong Kong authorities' detainment of media tycoon Jimmy Lai. Mr Sabah called on the British government to help secure the immediate release of British citizens Vladimir Kara-Murza and Jimmy Lai.
The Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong (CFHK) Foundation provided evidence to the United Nations’ Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Hong Kong authorities’ systematic persecution of women human rights activists, journalists, and politicians in Hong Kong and abroad.
The CFHK Foundation’s Mark Sabah spoke to NTD News about the imprisonment of Vladimir Kara-Murza and other political prisoners worldwide.
In the CFHK Foundation’s latest blog, the Index on Censorship’s Editor-in-Chief Jemimah Steinfeld wrote, “The National Security Law might be the most damning piece of legislation in terms of free expression I’ve seen, which says a lot; as editor-in-chief at the Index on Censorship I’m served a daily bread of draconian legislation”.
Following the CFHK Foundation’s screening of The Hong Konger: Jimmy Lai’s Extraordinary Struggle for Freedom last week, the Acton Institute has released the documentary to the global public. Watch the full documentary here.
Hong Kong
Prominent pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong has been jailed for three months for disclosing information about a police officer who opened fire at a Hong Kong protest in 2019.
Last week, Photon Media, a Chinese-language, Taiwan-based Hong Kong media outlet managed by three Hong Kong journalists-in-exile, began offering uncensored news about Hong Kong online. Former Apple Daily reporter Shirley Ka Lai Leung is Photon's Editor-in-Chief, and all three journalists involved are wary of being charged by the Hong Kong authorities of "collusion with foreign forces".
Following Beijing’s Director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office Xia Baolong’s visit to Hong Kong, John Lee vowed that Hong Kong would crack down on “hostile and destructive forces” in the city-state.
The leaders of Hong Kong Baptist University’s student union shop Stephen Chow made the Hong Kong Catholic Church’s first visit to the mainland since 1994. Bishop Chow expressed his desire for the Hong Kong and Beijing dioceses to have greater cooperation, but the Catholic Church should be wary of warmer ties with the CCP as China continues to crush religious freedom.
The leaders of Hong Kong Baptist University’s student unionhave been punished for posting “unfounded” and “exaggerated” content online regarding past Hong Kong government-related events, despite the students simply sharing information that is publicly available.
UK-China Relations
Hong Kong Watch released their report which reveals how the CCP and their accomplices such as HSBC, Manulife, and Principal have withheld approximately £2.2 billion worth of pensions from Hong Kongers who left the city and settled in Britain using the British National (Overseas) visa.
British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said Britain should not “pull the shutters down” towards China, despite the CCP’s infiltration of British universities, banks, networks, and infrastructure.
Scotland’s Herald exposed former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson meeting with the man who allegedly owns the building that houses one of the CCP’s illegal police stations in Glasgow.
Alicia Kearns MP and Catherine West MP urged the British government to investigate reports on and immediately shut down the CCP’s four illegal police stations throughout the UK.
Lord David Alton, Iain Duncan Smith MP, Alicia Kearns MP, Bob Seely MP, and Tim Loughton MP revealed how the CCP has launched an intimidation campaign against their families, underscoring how China tries to strong-arm its critics into silence.
EU-China Relations
The EU is demanding that China immediately release two Chinese activists, Yu Wensheng and Xu Yan, who were detained by the CCP while on their way to a meeting at the EU’s embassy in Beijing.
US-China Relations
Two US citizens were arrested in New York City for allegedly running a secret Chinese police station in Manhattan, and more than a dozen Chinese nationals have been charged for "waging a campaign of surveillance and harassment against dissidents living in the States". Senior Chinese diplomats were also found to be allegedly tied to the same illegal police station.