Hong Kong police have put bounties on 19 overseas-based activists linked to the pro-democracy group known as Hong Kong Parliament, deepening a national security case that now stretches across several countries and highlights how far the city’s authorities are prepared to pursue opponents abroad.
According to the evidence packet, police said the group was a “subversive organization” that had used illegal means to oppose Beijing’s authority over the city. Authorities accused its members of holding an election overseas, setting up a self-described legislature and pursuing ideas such as self-determination and a Hong Kong constitution. A court issued arrest warrants for activists including Elmer Yuen, Johnny Fok, Tony Choi, Victor Ho and Keung Ka-wai, along with 14 others.
The reward structure is unusually explicit. Police announced a bounty of HK$200,000, or about US$25,500, for each of the 15 activists named in the warrant list, plus HK$1 million for information that could lead to the arrest of Yuen, Ho, Fok and Choi. The authorities also said the investigation was still active and warned that more suspects could be added if necessary.
The group at the center of the case is based in Canada and was formed through an online vote, according to the source excerpt. It described itself as a platform for “Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong,” and said its online process drew 15,700 votes through a mobile application and online voting systems. The same account says the group’s members are spread across Australia, Canada, Taiwan, Thailand, the United States and the United Kingdom.
The case sits inside a broader crackdown that has intensified since Beijing imposed the national security law in 2020. The packet says the law has been used to suppress dissent, with authorities arresting opposition figures, sentencing some to prison and warning that even funding or assisting members of the overseas group could become a criminal offense. The current bounty is the fourth such reward operation Hong Kong authorities have launched under the law.
Taken together, the evidence shows a legal and political campaign that is no longer confined to the city itself. Hong Kong’s government is treating an overseas diaspora movement as a security threat, using arrest warrants, rewards and warnings to outsiders as tools of deterrence. For the activists involved, the practical effect is that distance is no longer protection. For the authorities, the case is part of a wider message that political organizing abroad can still trigger consequences at home.
