Hong Kong activist Sixtus Baggio Leung seeks US asylum
Sixtus Baggio Leung, one of the first to lose an elected seat in the Hong Kong legislature, has confirmed to Apple Daily that he is seeking political asylum in Washington because of fears for his personal safety.
Leung said via video call on Saturday evening that he had resigned from Hong Kong’s localist political group Youngspiration and severed all ties with his family.
He expected to be unable to return to Hong Kong in the near future and said he would continue to work on international lobbying, such as asking the United States to provide “lifeboats” for Hong Kong youths leaving the city and increase its sanction efforts against the city.
Leung recalled having been stalked by a group of around 10 people, whom he believed to be plainclothes police officers, since his release from jail in late September. He believed it was a sign that he might be arrested soon, as he had never shied from his political stance.
The September jailing, of four weeks, was imposed for unlawful assembly and attempted forcible entry after Leung and a fellow activist tried to charge into a Legislative Council meeting in 2016.
He told Apple Daily that on Nov. 30, he bought a ticket for the U.S.-bound flight only a little more than an hour before boarding started, and described himself as lucky.
The young activist hoped to do something for Hong Kong in the international community, focusing on three directions. First, he would urge world leaders to curb China’s expansion via financial policies instead of mere sanctions on government officials. Second, he would call on foreign countries to provide asylum to Hong Kong protesters. Third, he would join a shadow “parliament” established by exiled Hongkongers, he said.
In the first 10 days of his exile, Leung had met with U.S. deputy secretary of homeland security Ken Cuccinelli and congressman Scott Perry.
On Saturday, Leung suggested in an online press conference that sanctions targeting the financial system and linked exchange rate system in Hong Kong would have a greater effect than current U.S. sanctions against China, which mainly focused on the personal bank accounts of senior government officials.
Leung established Youngspiration in 2015 after Hong Kong’s 2014 Umbrella Movement, also known as Occupy Central. He won a legislature seat as the replacement candidate for another activist, Edward Leung, who was disqualified from the election for taking a pro-independence stance. However, Leung himself was invalidated as an elected lawmaker by the courts after he inserted his own words into the official oath taken at the first meeting of the new legislature.
After he was unseated, the legislature began proceedings to recover about HK$900,000 (US$116,000) in salaries and allowances from Leung, and has filed a bankruptcy petition against him. Leung has publicly admitted he still owes the court HK$4 million to HK$5 million in legal costs and does not intend to pay up.
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