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Hong Kong activists urge South Korea to suspend extradition treaties with Hong Kong and mainland China

蘋果日報 2020/09/19 06:45


Hong Kong activists Simon Cheng and Honcques Laus, who have been living in self-exile following the enactment of the city’s sweeping national security law, wrote a letter to South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Kang Kyung-wha, urging her country to suspend extradition treaties with Hong Kong and mainland China.
Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protesters have become ongoing targets of police brutality and political persecution, said Cheng and Laus, who are both currently in the U.K. They are wanted under the national security law that Beijing imposed on Hong Kong in late June and, as a result, were compelled to flee the city, they said.
“Any extradition treaty with the authoritarian regimes in Hong Kong and China is a big threat to Hongkongers abroad and liberty enthusiasts,” they wrote in a letter to Kang.
The national security law also affects Korean citizens who criticize the authoritarian regimes, they said, adding that other countries, including the U.K., the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Germany, have suspended extradition treaties with Hong Kong.
“Admittedly, real criminals need to be brought back to justice, but the concern of extraditing political dissidents facing trumped-up charges remains,” given the blatant violations of human rights records in Hong Kong and mainland China, the letter read.
Cheng and Laus mentioned past incidents of police brutality and political persecution in Korean history and said that the processes of democratization in South Korea and Hong Kong were quite similar. Support from South Korea, “a prominent member of the liberal world,” would be important and helpful to their cause, Cheng and Lau wrote.
“Despite encountering innumerable difficulties, we would not give up democracy,” they said. “Struggling for democracy is the most conspicuous feature of us.”
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