Hong Kong democracy advocate seeks asylum in Britain

HONG KONG: Hong Kong democracy activist Tony Chung said on Friday he had fled to Britain because he could no longer endure supervision from authorities, who had pressured him to become an informant and limited his work options.

In 2021, Chung, then 20, became the youngest person to be imprisoned under Hong Kong´s national security law -- imposed by Beijing after massive pro-democracy protests kicked off in 2019 in the former British colony.

He pleaded guilty to “secession” and was sentenced to three and a half years in prison.

Since his early release in June, Chung said he has lived in daily fear.

“I feared stepping out of my home, feared using the phone in public, and worried about the possibility of being detained again by national security police officers on the streets,” he said in a statement posted on social media early Friday but dated December 27.

Chung said he was told by authorities that he was not allowed to work in “specific businesses”, and that “national security police officers kept on coercing and inducing me to join them”.

“They proposed providing informant fees, urging me to supply information about others as proof of my reformation and willingness to cooperate.”

He said he got permission to leave Hong Kong by saying he wanted to go on holiday in Okinawa, Japan, and sought help once outside Chinese territory. “As I publish this statement, I have safely arrived in the United Kingdom and have formally applied for political asylum upon entry,” Chung said.