Hong Kong activist Nathan Law seeking asylum in the UK
22 December, 2020
Hong Kong activist Nathan Law on Monday (Dec 21) said he has applied for asylum in Britain, after fleeing in the wake of China's new security legislation.
The 27-year-old founding person in Demosisto, a pro-democracy party that disbanded on the same day regulations was imposed on the town, relocated to Britain in July.
"I've struggled with the question of whether I should stay static in the UK for the long term, but I've now decide - a credit card applicatoin for asylum in the UK has been submitted," he said.
Law said he previously left because of the brand new security law, which gave the government "sweeping powers to prosecute political dissidents in Hong Kong for speech crimes".
"I made a decision to flee to where I could speak freely," he wrote in The Guardian newspaper.
Britain has spoken out strongly against the national security law in Hong Kong. Earlier this month Law held his first formal meeting with a government minister in London.
UK Home Secretary Priti Patel is in charge of looking at relaxed entry rules for Hong Kongers holding British National (Overseas) passports, and said it "helps them to live free from political persecution".
London has protested at jail conditions handed to three other leading lights of Demosisto when planning on taking part in huge protests this past year.
But it has so far held faraway from imposing financial and travel bans on Chinese and Hong Kong leaders, unlike the US.
Yale-educated Law said he had decided not to visit the United States because there was still a belief in Britain and europe that China is actually a "strategic partner".
"In the US, adopting an assertive method of China and positioning it among the country's greatest enemies is a bipartisan consensus now. This is simply not the case in the UK and EU; that consensus should be built," he added.
"This is why why I boarded a plane destined for London," he said, describing himself as a "political refugee".
"I hope that my existence can sound an alarm to remind persons the amount of of a danger the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) poses to our shared democratic values."
Law warned against seeing the monetary benefits associated with closer ties with China, highlighting what he said was Beijing's autocratic method of human rights and free speech.
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