A Hong Kong court sentenced the father of a wanted activist to eight months in prison for attempting to access her frozen financial assets

HONG KONG: A Hong Kong court sentenced the father of a wanted activist to eight months in prison on Thursday.

The conviction is under the city’s national security law for attempting to access his daughter’s frozen financial assets.

Kwok Yin-sang, 69, is the father of overseas pro-democracy advocate Anna Kwok. Hong Kong authorities placed a HK$1 million bounty on her in 2023.

The city passed its own national security law in 2024, making it a crime to deal with the funds of fugitives. Kwok became the first person convicted of this offence.

Acting Principal Magistrate Cheng Lim-chi said Kwok did not directly endanger national security. He stated the nature of his actions was still serious.

Cheng denied the conviction amounted to collective punishment of activists’ families. He also rejected that Kwok was targeted for being a relative.

Kwok was found guilty after attempting in 2025 to withdraw around US$11,000. He tried to terminate an insurance policy bought for his daughter when she was an infant.

At the time, Anna Kwok called the conviction “hostage taking”. She said authorities were retaliating against her activism on what she called an “incoherent fiction”.

Rights groups labelled the case an “alarming act of collective punishment”. Hong Kong’s political opposition has been largely quashed since Beijing imposed a security law in 2020.

The city later imposed its own additional law in 2024. Authorities have vowed to pursue overseas activists accused of endangering national security.

Hong Kong has issued bounties on 34 people so far. Critics decry this action as transnational repression.

A total of 386 people had been arrested for various national security crimes as of this month. Of those, 176 have been convicted.

 The Sun Malaysia