{"id":325607,"date":"2025-08-07T16:17:19","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T16:17:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/325607\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T16:17:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T16:17:19","slug":"hong-kong-activists-in-britain-should-be-able-to-rely-on-police-protection-transnational-repression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/325607\/","title":{"rendered":"Hong Kong activists in Britain should be able to rely on police protection | Transnational repression"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">The UK has become a hunting ground for authoritarian regimes targeting dissidents, journalists and students. It is appalling that Hong Kong activists who sought refuge here met fear, harassment and intimidation from the government they had escaped, only to receive inadequate protection and little coordinated response (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/jul\/31\/hong-kong-democracy-campaigner-accuses-uk-police-of-asking-her-self-censor\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Hong Kong democracy campaigner accuses UK police of asking her to \u2018self-censor\u2019, 1 August<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">Amnesty International has repeatedly documented the Chinese government\u2019s transnational repression, including the surveillance and intimidation of students and activists here in the UK. This includes an alarming escalation in threats against the Hong Kong community, with bounties placed on the heads of UK-based pro-democracy activists.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">Last week, parliament\u2019s joint committee on human rights <a href=\"https:\/\/committees.parliament.uk\/publications\/49059\/documents\/257980\/default\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">issued a report<\/a> exposing major gaps that are putting Hong Kong and Chinese activists\u2019 freedom at risk, including the lack of a clear definition of transnational repression, patchy police responses, no dedicated reporting mechanism, and failure to collect even basic data on the scale of the threat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">Initial steps taken by the government to address transnational repression are welcome, but the recent police response, as illustrated by your report, exposes the huge gap between policy and practice. The police must be given more extensive and consistent training to increase their awareness of these incidents<strong> <\/strong>and must act to protect Carmen Lau and other activists\u2019 right to free speech \u2013 they must not be complicit in silencing them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">The government must now act on the above recommendations from the committee\u2019s report. Protections must be real, visible and trusted by those they are supposed to serve. It must work with affected activists and communities to define transnational repression, track it and confront it, before silence becomes the new norm.<br \/><strong>Sara Rydkvist<\/strong><br \/>Hong Kong programme director, Amnesty International UK<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\"><strong> Have an opinion on anything you\u2019ve read in the Guardian today? Please <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2025\/aug\/07\/mailto:guardian.letters@theguardian.com?body=Please%20include%20your%20name,%20full%20postal%20address%20and%20phone%20number%20with%20your%20letter%20below.%20Letters%20are%20usually%20published%20with%20the%20author%27s%20name%20and%20city\/town\/village.%20The%20rest%20of%20the%20information%20is%20for%20verification%20only%20and%20to%20contact%20you%20where%20necessary.\" data-link-name=\"in body link \" https:=\"\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>email<\/strong><\/a><strong> us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/tone\/letters\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>letters<\/strong><\/a><strong> section.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UK has become a hunting ground for authoritarian regimes targeting dissidents, journalists and students. It is appalling&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-325607","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-northern-ireland","14":"tag-scotland","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114988387121109393","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}