Hong Kong File Photo: VCG

 
The Office for Safeguarding National Security of the Central People's Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) on Monday stated firm support for the Hong Kong Police Force (HKPF)'s issuing of arrest warrants for eight anti-China rioters in accordance with the law, emphasizing that overseas regions are not lands beyond the law.

The office said that overseas regions are not lawless lands for anti-China rioters to endanger the China's sovereignty, security and development interests. Anyone who violates the national security law for Hong Kong or commits relevant criminal acts anywhere must be prosecuted and punished by law, according to the office.

The HKSAR government also said on Monday that it supports the HKPF in taking actions in accordance with the law. 

The HKPF's national security department on Monday said that earlier, the city court had approved the issuance of arrest warrants for eight persons including Nathan Law Kwun-chung, Ted Hui Chi-fung and Dennis Kwok Wing-hang, who have fled overseas and allegedly contravened the national security law for Hong Kong, and the persons at large are wanted by the police.

The police in HKSAR are offering HK$1 million ($127,627) in rewards for each of the wanted persons, which is valid until July 2, 2024. Steve Li Kwai-wah, chief superintendent of the national security department of the HKPF, stressed that all the actions are aimed at enforcing the law. Li called on the eight persons to come back to the HKSAR and turn themselves in, so as to get reduced sentences, according to local media reports.

Their alleged criminal activities include urging foreign countries to sanction judges in HKSAR, and offering advice for other countries and regions to undermine the HKSAR's status as an international financial hub, according to local media reports.

These persons have colluded with external forces to engage in anti-China destabilization activities in HKSAR for a long time and have continued to engage in activities detrimental to national security overseas, including "incitement to secession" and "incitement to subversion," according to the statement released by the central government office for safeguarding national security in HKSAR.

According to open sources, the wanted persons or fugitives are now in the US, UK or Australia, as they have absconded from HKSAR and intended to run away from their legal liabilities, Chu Kar-kin, a veteran current affairs commentator based in HKSAR and a member of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies, told the Global Times on Monday.

They are still actively lobbying by approaching foreign politicians, demanding that the foreign parliaments sanction officials from the mainland and HKSAR, whose image and rule of law has been defamed by these fugitives, Chu said.

"Such conveyances of harassment and messages of hatred should be put to a stop. They should return to HKSAR to give themselves in, surrender and admit their wrongdoings in return for a plea bargain of a sentence reduction. They are a disgrace to the HKSAR community," Chu noted.

"They are not guests or celebrities, but fugitives. Many younger people who have been misled by them have now ended up in jail or black-marked with criminal records and uncertain futures," Chu said.

Ted Hui Chi-fung, 41, is suspected of illegally inciting another person not to vote, or to cast an invalid vote through an activity in public during the election period of the Legislative Council of the HKSAR. Hui left the HKSAR in November 2020. The other person on the wanted list, Nathan Law Kwun-chung, 29, left the HKSAR in June 2020.