Hong Kong police accused five activists based overseas Thursday of breaching a harsh national security law imposed by Beijing and offered rewards of 1 million Hong Kong dollars ($128,000) for information leading to each of their arrests.
The latest arrest warrants further intensified the Hong Kong government’s crackdown on dissidents after anti-government protests in 2019. Many leading pro-democracy activists were arrested, silenced, or forced into self-exile after the introduction of the security law in 2020, in a sign that freedoms promised to the former British colony when it returned to China in 1997 had been eroded drastically. But both Beijing and Hong Kong governments have hailed the security law for bringing back stability to the semi-autonomous Chinese city.
