Pro-democracy activist Agnes Chow is exiling herself in Canada, after getting her passport back from police in return for having taken a patriotic trip to China, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Chow is on police bail on suspicion of national-security crimes. She was taken to mainland China in August. In Shenzhen she was taken to an exhibition which documented China’s achievements and to the headquarters of tech company Tencent.
Tencent was to help her understand China’s technological development. She had to take photographs at some sites and was repeatedly photographed by her driver.
Returning to Hong Kong, she was instructed to write a letter thanking the police for the trip and for enabling her to understand the great development of the motherland.
She then got her passport back to study in Toronto, on condition she reported to the police when she returned to China during school breaks.
‘I have never denied China’s economic development’, Chow wrote on Instagram. ‘But how can such a powerful country send people who fight for democracy to prison, restrict their freedom of movement, and even require them to go to mainland China and visit patriotic exhibitions in exchange for their passports? Is this not a kind of fragility?’
The Hong Kong government condemned Chow’s plan to jump bail and said fugitives would be pursued for life unless they turned themselves in. ‘No matter what excuses she put forward or how she attempted to deceive and win sympathy, her hypocrisy, disgrace and disregard for law and order are laid bare’, the government said in a statement on Monday.
Chow’s fear and unease persisted due to regular check-ins with the police; panic about being re-arrested; and diagnoses of depression and PTSD. ‘Over these few years, I’ve intimately felt how precious freedom from fear is’, she said.