Ted Hui: Wong says case of Hong Kong exile targeted by anonymous ‘pro-Israel’ leaflets raised with China

An outspoken Hong Kong exile living in Australia has been targeted by anonymous leaflets allegedly posted to mosques in Adelaide and falsely accusing him of “siding with Israel” to “wage war” against Islamic terrorism.

A spokesperson for Foreign Minister Penny Wong said that she has and will raise the case with the Chinese authorities.

The pamphlets, posted at the end of last year at the height of public alarm over rising anti-Semitism, appear to have been an effort to undermine Mr Hui and risked stoking social division, either directly or indirectly. It is not known who sent them.

Ted Hui, a lawyer and former Hong Kong legislator, who took refuge in Australia after Beijing crushed the city’s 2019 pro-democracy protests, told The Nightly he had been warned about the leaflets by the authorities, who said they were taking it seriously.

He was told the fake flyers, which used Photoshopped images of his face and business card, had been posted anonymously from Macau, the special administrative region of China that neighbours Hong Kong.

The Nightly was unable to independently verify the leaflets were posted to Adelaide mosques from Macau but contacted the Australian Federal Police and ASIO for comment.

The one-page documents are designed using the logo of Mr Hui’s current law firm alongside his face and sections about his “professional knowledge” and a “who am I” section.

They state that he “provides assistance to local Jews” and that “I am a pro-Jewish man and siding with Israel to wage war against those [sic] Islamic terrorism.”

The leaflet describes Mr Hui as a “warrior of The Democratic Party and Legislative Council in Hong Kong, striving for Hong Kong independence and the overthrow of the Chinese Communist Party”.

Mr Hui said he was shocked and alarmed when he was informed about the brazen attempts to “cause trouble” for him.

The leaflets arrived as a spate of anti-Semitic attacks were unsettling Australia’s Jewish communities and may have been an attempt to exploit widespread unease across the country.

Mr Hui was blind-sided by the attempts to draw him into the crisis and said the claims in the pamphlets were completely unfounded.

“It triggers me to think this can happen because I never thought of being troubled by these kind of tricks,” he said.

“I would only imagine someone following me, stopping me, that kind of thing, taking photos of me, but not sending stuff to others to create tensions. So it’s alarming in that way,” he said.

Mr Hui did not know the source of the leaflets or whether they had been backed by the Chinese state or an individual influenced by Chinese Government propaganda. He did not believe they had been distributed on a large scale.

The Nightly contacted the Chinese embassy for comment.

But the one-time politician who was often seen trying to mediate between police and protesters on the frontlines of the Hong Kong pro-democracy rallies has been hounded by the Chinese Communist Party since fleeing to Australia via Europe in early 2021.

In 2022, a Hong Kong court sentenced him to three-and-a-half years in jail over charges related to the protest movement, which he has previously called unfair and often based on false testimony.

In 2023, he was issued with an arrest warrant under the controversial national security law that was used to crack down on civil liberties in the city and crush all dissent.

Mr Hui and Kevin Yam, a Melbourne-based Australian lawyer, were both issued with warrants and a $201,851 bounty placed on their heads. They were told by the Hong Kong authorities to “give themselves up” or they will be “pursued for life.”

They are among eight overseas-based activists wanted on charges that include colluding with foreign forces and incitement to secession under a law that has been widely condemned internationally by democratic governments.

Mr Yam has also been targeted in recent days by anonymous letters mailed from Hong Kong and describing him as a “wanted person,” reported the Guardian.

“I will continue to live my everyday life,” he said on social media on Tuesday.

In response to both cases, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said that Australia would not tolerate the targeting of people on its soil.

“We are a sovereign nation. We do not accept any one of our citizens or on our shores, people being bullied or harassed or threatened by a foreign power,” she said.

“We expect our democracy and our citizens to be able to operate free from such interference, that kind of pressure or threats. And we have and will make representations very clearly.”

Shadow home affairs minister James Paterson also weighed in with concerns.

“It’s a gravely serious if a foreign government is attempting to silence Australian citizens and residents from speaking out about the situation in Hong Kong,” he said.

“It is particularly dangerous to weaponise anti-Semitism for the purposes of foreign interference. We must stand with Kevin Yam and Ted Hui and make clear whoever is responsible for this will be punished to the full extent possible under the law.”

The growing dangers for perceived dissidents from foreign regimes was highlighted by ASIO chief Mike Burgess in his annual threat assessment in February, although he declined to single out any one country.

Australia was facing “multifaceted, merging, intersecting, concurrent and cascading threats,” with “foreign interference” already at extreme levels, he said.

“Multiple foreign regimes continually attempt to monitor, harass, intimidate and coerce cooperation from Australians and those who call Australia home,” Mr Burgess said.

Dr Kevin Carrico, a senior lecturer in Chinese Studies at Monash University, said the “shocking” targeting of Mr Hui looked like “very blatant foreign interference.”

“It demonstrates a certain awareness of what’s going on in Australia at the moment, combined with an eagerness to use current events to create problems for people,” he said.

“It does seem like a very transparent and direct attempt to not only misrepresent somebody’s opinion, but to also misrepresent it maliciously, so that that person then faces blowback and repercussions for something that they did not actually do.”

While the number one objective was to “make life difficult” for the victim, “any other chaos that might grow out of that is, I think, a side effect that wouldn’t be necessarily viewed negatively,” he said.

“It speaks to a certain awareness of sensitive points in society.”