By Kanishka Singh and Liz Lee
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. State Department said that Hong Kong’s offered bounties for six more pro-democracy campaigners who were deemed to have violated national security laws and the revoking of the passports of seven more amounted to intimidation efforts.
The State Department also separately condemned China for taking steps against two Canadian institutions and 20 people involved in human rights issues concerning the Uyghurs and Tibet.
“We reject the Hong Kong government’s efforts to intimidate and silence individuals who choose to make the United States their home,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement on Thursday, adding some of the targeted individuals were based in the United States.
China’s foreign ministry said Hong Kong’s law enforcement actions were necessary to safeguard national sovereignty and security.
“The extraterritorial application of Hong Kong’s national security laws is fully consistent with international law and practice,” ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said told reporters at a Friday news briefing.
She called the U.S. hypocritical for “attacking” Hong Kong’s actions while “abusing the concept of national security and exercising illegal long-arm jurisdiction”.
China-imposed national security legislation in Hong Kong has triggered U.S. sanctions and has been used to jail pro-democracy activists after violent street protests in 2019.
China’s office for safeguarding national security in Hong Kong said on Tuesday it supported the actions, as the individuals had engaged in “anti-China” and destabilising acts.
Beijing on Sunday separately targeted Canada-based Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project and the Canada-Tibet Committee by announcing measures including asset freezes and bans on entry.
The sanctions countered Canada’s sanctions earlier this month against eight Chinese individuals it said were involved in “grave human rights violations”.
Mao said the countermeasures which are “entirely legitimate and reasonable”.
“We advise the country concerned to face up to their own problems and stop political manipulation under the pretext of so-called human rights,” she said.
Rights groups accuse Beijing of widespread abuses of Uyghurs, a mainly Muslim ethnic minority that numbers around 10 million in the western region of Xinjiang, including the mass use of forced labour in camps. Beijing denies any abuses.
China seized control of Tibet in 1950. International human rights groups and exiles have routinely condemn what they call China’s oppressive rule in Tibetan areas.
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