HONG KONG – A Hong Kong court on Feb 6 issued a bankruptcy order against Ted Hui, an exiled prominent pro-democracy activist and former legislator who is accused of breaching the city’s national security law.

The 41-year-old veteran activist announced in December 2020 that he had gone into exile following Beijing’s crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong, which saw the imposition of a sweeping national security law months before that.

He is among several overseas activists targeted in 2023 by police bounties of HK$1 million (S$172,000) each.

The authorities at the time accused the activists of “very serious offences that endanger national security”.

At a brief hearing on Feb 6, a Hong Kong High Court judge made a bankruptcy order against Hui.

Legal documents “have been validly served on the debtor. The debtor has never responded,” High Court Judge Kent Yee said.

AFP has contacted Hui for comment. He was not represented in court.

Hui was a high-profile participant in the huge and sometimes violent democracy protests that swept the financial hub in 2019.

After fleeing Hong Kong, the activist resettled in Australia and remains a vocal critic of the Hong Kong and Beijing authorities.

In 2022, Hui was sentenced to jail in absentia for misleading the authorities into letting him leave Hong Kong.

He is also wanted by the Hong Kong authorities for urging voters to cast blank ballots in the 2021 legislative race after Beijing revamped the electoral system.

In 2020, he criticised HSBC for “unreasonably (freezing) my accounts” after the banking giant complied with a Hong Kong police request. AFP