HONG KONG — A Hong Kong court on Thursday sentenced a 69-year old man for eight months under the city’s national security law, in the first case against a family member of a pro-democracy activist wanted by authorities.Kwok Yin-sang, the father of exiled pro-democracy activist Anna Kwok, was convicted in early February, found guilty of handling financial assets belonging to his daughter after he attempted to terminate her insurance policy and withdraw the funds.Anna Kwok, 29, is one of more than two dozen overseas activists who is wanted by Hong Kong authorities, who have issued a bounty of $1 million Hong Kong dollars (approximately $127,000 ) for her arrest.Anna Kwok lives in Washington, where she is the executive director of the Hong Kong Democracy Council (HKDC), a lobbyist group that raises issues like the plight of the city’s political prisoners and ongoing human rights abuses.Kwok Yin-sang was found guilty on February 11 for “attempting to deal with, directly or indirectly, any funds or other financial assets or economic resources” belonging to an “absconder” under the city’s homegrown national security law, also known as Article 23.He is the first person in the city to be charged and convicted with the offense. He had pleaded not guilty and did not testify at the trial. In court on Thursday, he appeared calm and waved goodbye before being taken back into custody.In Washington, before her father’s sentence was handed down, Anna Kwok told Reuters she found it “utterly despicable” that the Hong Kong government was going after her dad.“This is the first case, but it is not going to be the last case,” she said.Her father was accused of trying to withdraw funds totalling HK$88,609 ($11,342) from an insurance policy that he bought for her when she was two years old.Magistrate Andy Cheng said Kwok’s case was a serious one under the national security law and had nothing to do with family ties.“There is no such thing as … collective punishment, and it has absolutely nothing to do with whether the defendant and the fugitive are family,” Cheng said.China imposed a sweeping national security law on Hong Kong in 2020 and the city’s legislature passed a second set of national security laws in 2024, to plug what authorities called “loopholes” in the national security regime. — Agencies
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