Anna Kwok speaks throughout an occasion commemorating China’s June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Sq. crackdown on pro-democracy motion in Washington D.C., on June 3, 2024.
Didi Tang/AP
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Didi Tang/AP
HONG KONG — The daddy of a U.S.-based activist wished by Hong Kong authorities was convicted of trying to take care of an absconder’s monetary property on Wednesday, within the first court docket case of its type introduced underneath a homegrown nationwide safety legislation.
Kwok Yin-sang’s daughter Anna is the chief director of the Washington-based Hong Kong Democracy Council. Authorities in 2023 supplied 1 million Hong Kong {dollars} (about $127,900) for info resulting in her arrest and later banned anybody from dealing with any funds for her — extensively seen as a part of a yearslong crackdown on challenges towards Beijing’s rule following the huge, anti-government protests in 2019.
Kwok, 69, was arrested in April 2025 underneath the safety legislation, regionally generally known as Article 23 laws, enacted a 12 months earlier than. He was accused of getting tried to acquire funds from an insurance coverage coverage underneath his daughter’s identify. He pleaded not responsible.
Appearing principal Justice of the Peace Cheng Lim-chi discovered him responsible on Wednesday, saying Kwok will need to have identified his daughter was an absconder and he was trying to deal with her property.
In line with earlier hearings, Kwok purchased the insurance coverage coverage for Anna when she was a toddler and he or she gained management of it when she reached 18 years outdated. The daddy in 2025 wished to cancel the coverage and get funds from it, the court docket heard.
Kwok’s lawyer, Steven Kwan, pleaded for a lesser sentence for his consumer, saying there was no proof to point out his consumer was attempting to get the cash to ship to his daughter. He urged the choose think about a 14-day jail time period.
Whereas the utmost sentence for his cost is seven years of imprisonment, however his case was heard on the magistrates’ courts, which usually palms down a most sentence of two years.
His sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 26.
Authorities have accused the daughter of requesting overseas sanctions, blockade and fascinating in different hostile actions towards China and Hong Kong by way of assembly overseas politicians and authorities officers.
After the decision, the Hong Kong Democratic Council mentioned on X that “it represents yet another escalation of transnational repression.”
Amnesty Worldwide Hong Kong Abroad spokesperson Joey Siu mentioned the conviction was apparently politically motivated.
“It also sets a dangerous precedent, designed to terrify and silence others who continue to speak out about Hong Kong issues from overseas,” she mentioned in an announcement, calling for Kwok’s launch.
The police’s bounties concentrating on overseas-based Hong Kong activists, together with Siu and pro-democracy former lawmakers Nathan Legislation and Ted Hui, have drawn criticism from the U.S. and the U.Ok. governments.
In 2025, Washington sanctioned six Chinese language and Hong Kong officers who it alleged had been concerned in “transnational repression” and acts that threaten to additional erode the town’s autonomy. It mentioned Beijing and Hong Kong officers have used Hong Kong’s nationwide safety legal guidelines extraterritorially to intimidate, silence and harass some activists who had been pressured to flee abroad.
Weeks after that, China mentioned it might sanction U.S. officers, lawmakers and leaders of nongovernmental organizations who it mentioned have “performed poorly” on Hong Kong points.
After Beijing imposed a 2020 nationwide safety legislation on the town, many main activists had been arrested or silenced. Others fled overseas and continued their advocacy for Hong Kong, a British colony that returned to Chinese language rule in 1997.
Each China and Hong Kong governments insist the safety legal guidelines had been essential for the town’s stability.
