In a deeply alarming escalation of transnational repression that echoes threats made against a Canadian election candidate, Hong Kong’s national security police today detained the parents of U.S. resident Frances Hui, a prominent Hong Kong democracy activist who previously testified before Canada’s Parliament about Chinese government harassment on Western soil.

Hui, who fled Hong Kong and was granted asylum in Washington, D.C., faces a HK$1 million bounty issued in December 2023 under Beijing’s sweeping National Security Law. She had warned Canadian lawmakers that the Chinese Communist Party was targeting overseas activists—including herself and others with Canadian ties—through intimidation, surveillance, and harassment campaigns executed by proxies abroad.

The detention in Hong Kong on Thursday, April 10, comes just one week after the U.S. State Department sanctioned six Hong Kong and Chinese officials and two days after a bill was reintroduced in Congress to shutter Hong Kong’s de facto embassies in the U.S. Hui’s advocacy played a major role in both moves.

Hui, the Advocacy and Policy Coordinator for the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong (CFHK) Foundation, condemned the police action against her family as “emotional blackmail.”

“My parents and I have had no contact since I left Hong Kong in 2020,” Hui said in a statement. “The police arranged a crowd of media to photograph their exit from the police station—to humiliate them. This is a deliberate attempt to intimidate and silence me.”

The targeting of Hui’s family may intensify concerns in diaspora communities that the Chinese Communist Party is attempting to obtain multiple objectives, potentially sending a message timed to Canada’s 2025 federal election—especially after recent remarks from a former Liberal candidate in Markham–Unionville stoked widespread alarm.

Paul Chiang, who resigned last week amid an RCMP review into controversial remarks, had reportedly suggested that Conservative opponent Joe Tay—a Canadian citizen wanted under Hong Kong’s National Security Law—could be taken to the Chinese Consulate in Toronto to claim a bounty.

Chiang, a former Markham police officer who unseated longtime Conservative representative Bob Saroya to win Markham–Unionville for Team Trudeau in 2021, stepped down after the RCMP confirmed it was investigating his comments to Chinese-language media in January 2025.

On the latest threats to Hui and her family, CFHK Foundation President Mark Clifford said: “This is outrageous targeting of a young woman who has lived in the U.S. for the last five years and whose advocacy and freedom of speech is protected under U.S. laws. The CFHK Foundation will continue to support Frances and all those with the courage to speak out against the crimes being perpetrated in Hong Kong and the low-class bullies who perpetrate them.”

Earlier in Canada’s election campaign, which is quickly becoming marked by reports of Chinese interference, Tay, a former Hong Kong broadcaster whose independent journalism has drawn retaliation from Beijing, quickly rejected Chiang’s apology, calling it “the tradecraft of the Chinese Communist Party.” He added: “They are not just aimed at me; they are intended to send a chilling signal to the entire community to force compliance with Beijing’s political goals.”

As previously reported by The Bureau, Hui detailed her experience with transnational repression in testimony before Canada’s Subcommittee on International Human Rights. She recounted how she was targeted by a naturalized U.S. citizen—now under federal indictment in Massachusetts—who allegedly spied on dissidents for the Chinese government.

“Between 2018 and 2022, this individual spied on members and leaders of Boston-area Chinese family associations and community organizations, as well as anti-PRC dissidents,” Hui told the committee. “In one incident, he mobilized hundreds to harass us. I was followed home and had to call the police. I regularly receive phone calls from men speaking Chinese.”

Developing…