Father of US-based Hong Kong activist convicted under national security law : NPR

Anna Kwok speaks during an event commemorating China’s June 4, 1989 crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square in Washington DC, June 3, 2024.

Didi Tang/AP

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Didi Tang/AP

HONG KONG — The father of a U.S.-based activist wanted by Hong Kong authorities was convicted Wednesday of trying to take a fugitive’s financial assets, in the first such legal case brought under a national security law.

Kwok Yin-sang’s daughter Anna is the executive director of the Washington-based Hong Kong Democratic Council. In 2023, authorities offered 1 million Hong Kong dollars (about $127,900) for information leading to her arrest and later banned anyone from handling funds for her – widely seen as part of a year-long crackdown on challenges to Beijing’s rule following massive anti-government protests in 2019.

Kwok, 69, was arrested in April 2025 under the security law, known locally as Section 23 legislation, enacted a year earlier. He was accused of trying to obtain funds from an insurance policy in his daughter’s name. He pleaded not guilty.

Acting Senior Magistrate Cheng Lim-chi found him guilty on Wednesday, saying Kwok must have known his daughter was on the run and that he was trying to manage her assets.

According to previous hearings, Kwok bought the insurance policy for Anna when she was little and took control of it when she turned 18. In 2025, the father wanted to cancel the policy and draw funds from it, the court heard.

Kwok’s attorney, Steven Kwan, argued for a lesser sentence for his client, saying there was no evidence to show his client was trying to get the money to send to his daughter. He suggested the judge consider a 14-day jail sentence.

The maximum sentence for this charge is seven years’ imprisonment, but his case was heard in the magistrates’ courts, which normally impose a maximum sentence of two years.

His sentencing is scheduled for February 26.

Authorities accused the girl of seeking foreign sanctions, a blockade and engaging in other hostile activities against China and Hong Kong by meeting with foreign politicians and government officials.

After the verdict, the Hong Kong Democratic Council said on X that “this represents a further escalation of transnational repression.”

Amnesty International Hong Kong Overseas spokesperson Joey Siu said the conviction was apparently politically motivated.

“It also sets a dangerous precedent, designed to terrify and silence those who continue to speak out on Hong Kong issues from abroad,” she said in a statement, calling for Kwok’s release.

Police bounties on overseas-based Hong Kong activists, including Siu and former pro-democracy lawmakers Nathan Law and Ted Hui, have drawn criticism from the U.S. and British governments.

In 2025, Washington sanctioned six Chinese and Hong Kong officials it accused of being involved in a “transnational repression” and acts that threaten to further erode the city’s autonomy. It says Beijing and Hong Kong officials used Hong Kong’s national security laws extraterritorially to intimidate, silence and harass some activists who were forced to flee abroad.

Weeks later, China announced it would sanction U.S. officials, lawmakers and nongovernmental organization leaders who it said had “poor records” on Hong Kong issues.

After Beijing imposed a national security law on the city in 2020, many prominent activists were arrested or silenced. Others fled abroad and continued to defend Hong Kong, a British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

The Chinese and Hong Kong governments insist that security laws were crucial to the city’s stability.