A Hong Kong dissident who runs the biggest organisation helping his compatriots to move to Britain claims that he is being followed and intimidated by pro-Beijing activists.
Simon Cheng, who was granted asylum in Britain in 2019 after alleging he was tortured in China when he was detained on a business trip, believes the Communist Party is monitoring him.
Cheng, 31, said he was followed this week after speaking at a screening of a documentary about state repression in Hong Kong. On the day he spoke to The Times, the reporter received a notification that an attempt was being made in China to access his phone.
Last year the Metropolitan Police began an investigation after pro-Beijing activists offered £10,000 on social media for Cheng’s address. The message, posted to more than 270 members of a Chinese social media group, included a photo of Cheng in Westminster with MPs including Stephen Kinnock.
Cheng, who lives in London, told The Times: “The danger is great. I know the nature of the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] so I’m not surprised by anything it does and I just don’t know if it will turn into physical harm.”
On Sunday evening a man wearing a suit jacket and jeans got on the train at the same London station as Cheng. When he got off he waited to ensure he was not being followed, a manoeuvre that has become customary since he became a democracy advocate.
Cheng was about to leave when he looked behind him to see the man, standing a metre away, staring at him. “He had a strange look on his face. There was no reason for him to be standing so close and staring with no one around. I could tell in my gut that something was not right,” Cheng said.
The man passed Cheng and left the station before doubling back. Cheng took a shaky photograph before the man walked away. He said that the next day another man followed him around a restaurant and confronted him in Cantonese when Cheng photographed him. Two days later a drone hovered a metre from his window while he was out and his girlfriend was at home, he said.
Hongkongers in Britain, a non-profit organisation that Cheng set up with government funding, has helped thousands of citizens to flee to the UK. “The CCP hates what we do and it will never compromise. They will do whatever it takes to suppress rebels to its government, including acting in foreign countries,” he said.
“I left Hong Kong to find somewhere safe but even here I am targeted. Our group is the main organisation helping Hongkongers come to Britain so China sees us as a huge threat. I believe at the moment I am being monitored so they can build a case against me and try me in China as a traitor.”
After Beijing imposed a repressive national security law in Hong Kong in 2020, Britain offered up to three million of its residents the chance to settle. Since then about 100,000 have done so.
The Chinese embassy in London said that Cheng’s detention in China was “strictly in accordance with the law”. It added: “The legal rights of all Chinese citizens, including overseas citizens, are guaranteed.”
