24-7-2023 (HONG KONG) The Hong Kong national security police on Monday took in family members of businessman-turned-activist Elmer Yuen for questioning, one of the eight fugitives with bounties on their heads for allegedly breaching national security. The city announced this month that eight pro-democracy activists, all of whom now live overseas, are wanted for national security crimes, and offered rewards of HK$1 million (US$128,000) for each of them.
Since then, the police have targeted at least seven family members of three of those wanted – lawmakers Nathan Law and Dennis Kwok, as well as unionist Mung Siu-tat – taking them in for questioning before releasing them.
Yuen, a US-based businessman, became a vocal activist for foreign sanctions against Hong Kong and Chinese officials during the city’s democracy movement in 2019. His daughter-in-law, a pro-Beijing legislator in Hong Kong who has publicly severed ties with Yuen, said that national security police arrived at her home early Monday with a search warrant.
The police took her and her husband, Yuen’s son, to two separate police stations for hours of questioning. She reiterated her support for the investigation, stating that “I believe the police are determined to look for strong evidence from family members of the eight fugitives and to locate the eight people.”
Since Hong Kong issued the bounties, five former colleagues of Law have been arrested over allegations of providing support to the fugitives. They have since been released on bail.
The national security law was imposed on Hong Kong in 2020 to quell the democracy protests that kicked off the year before. So far, police have arrested 260 people under the national security law, with 79 of them convicted or awaiting sentencing in Hong Kong.
