Michael Mo, an former Hong Kong district councilor and now a researcher in exile in the U.K., discusses a new Guardian newspaper report about China influencing far-right groups to carry out transnational repression against minority dissidents in the U.K.
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00:00Michael, can you talk about this report from The Guardian and what tactics are being used to silence Hong Kong exiles in the U.K.?
00:06So, according to The Guardian, which is in collaboration with the ICIJ investigation, find that there are some messages circulating in social media,
00:20particularly the right-wing groups, posing the addresses and the whereabouts of pro-democracy Hong Kong activists' U.K. addresses and their whereabouts.
00:34So, it is something that is not new, I would say. It is coherent with the continuing transnational repression that is exerted upon those pro-democracy Hong Kongers abroad
00:50but it is a new development that is linked up to the right-wing elements or has been spread to the right-wing WhatsApp groups or the Telegram groups.
01:04It also matches the trend that these right-wing groups in the U.K. that uses WhatsApp to pretty much circulate those ethnic minority groups' surfacing points
01:19or their activity points, pretty much letting their fellows or their folks know that these ethnic minorities are there and seemingly to incite whatever hatred to them.
01:35So, what can Hong Kong exiles do to stay safe and what more can the government do to protect asylum seekers and their country?
01:43So, there are two ways for Hong Kongers to get themselves protected in the U.K.
01:51For instance, one thing is that to organise workshops or to share the best practices for personal safety, both online and offline.
02:05Secondly, I think it is more on the U.K. government's responsibility to engage with Hong Kong diaspora community and also other ethnic minorities that is under the transnational repression by Beijing to talk to them regularly, to hold regular meetings.
02:25So far, we don't see that mechanism.
02:28Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, we have seen four democracy activists released from jail, but there is still talk about heavy repression and surveillance.
02:36Can you talk a little bit about what the experience still is like in Hong Kong?
02:40For those high profile activists at STEM, we have seen a trend that police would make a heavy surveillance on them and then pretty much to monitor who they have met when those meetings happened.
02:58And for those not so prominent activists, they are still having the self-sensorship exercise.
03:09For instance, when meeting pro-democracy activists who are now even living in exile overseas.
03:17For those pretty much who have left the jail but not engaged in any kind of activism anymore, their lives in Hong Kong are still difficult.
03:29For instance, we received reports that these people have been debunked pretty much by all banks in Hong Kong.
03:39So it's very hard for them to get a job in Hong Kong without having a bank account.
03:47I'm there.