After speaking out about the suppression of Hong Kong’s protests, Chloe Cheung was targeted by Beijing, followed on the street and abused online. Yet she remains defiant

Media outlets across east Asia were reporting that Cheung, who had just finished her A-levels, had been declared a threat to national security by officials in Hong Kong. There was an offer of HK$1m (£94,000) to anyone who could assist in her arrest or capture.

Friends said: ‘Sorry, you are a criminal in Hong Kong now so we can’t be associated with you.’ Even friends in Leeds stopped seeing me

  • oce 🐆@jlai.luEnglish
    40·
    22 hours ago

    Sadly, it wouldn’t be surprising if they were already there. The International Consortium of Investigating Journalists (Panama Papers etc.) even has a specific hashtag for these operations, #ChinaTargets. https://www.icij.org/investigations/china-targets/china-transnational-repression-dissent-around-world/

    Half of the targets interviewed by ICIJ and its media partners said the harassment extended to family members back home, who suffered intimidation and were interrogated by police or state security officials one or more times. Several victims told ICIJ that their family members in China or Hong Kong were harassed by police shortly after they had participated in protests or public events overseas. Sixty said they believed they had been followed or were targets of surveillance or spying by Chinese officials or their proxies; 27 said they were victims of an online smear campaign, and 19 said they had received suspicious messages or experienced hacking attempts, including by state actors. Some said their bank accounts in China and Hong Kong had been frozen. Officers from both the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of State Security — two of the Chinese agencies with intelligence capacity — were responsible for intimidating some of the targets and their families, the testimonies show. Twenty-two people said they received physical threats or had been assaulted by civilian CCP supporters.