Activist on Hong Kong Wanted List Receives Magnitsky Human Rights Award

Chloe Cheung, who nows lives in the UK, was 19 when Hong Kong authorities issued a HK$1 million bounty on her and five other activists.

NTD Newsroom

Published: 11/4/2025, 3:35:00 PM EST

Activist on Hong Kong Wanted List Receives Magnitsky Human Rights Award — Chloe Cheung, junior manager at the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, in an interview with NTD in London in August 2025. (NTD)

The youngest of the pro-democracy activists on Hong Kong Police's wanted list, Chloe Cheung, was awarded the Magnitsky Award for human rights on Monday in recognition of her campaigning.

Cheung, 20, is the junior manager for public Affairs and advocacy at the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation.

Announcing Cheung, as the 2025 winner for Outstanding Young Human Rights Activist on X, the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign (GMJC) announced applauded her "impactful campaigning for justice and civil liberties in Hong Kong," adding, "Her voice inspires hope for a freer future."

Cheung said she was "deeply honored" to receive the award.

"Proud to receive this as a Hong Konger," she wrote on X. "We will not back down. We will fight. The world is watching. Free HongKong."

The Magnitsky Awards, named after Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky—who died in custody after exposing a government corruption scheme—was created in 2015 by U.S.-born British financier Bill Browder to recognize human rights works by politicians, journalists, and activists.

Browder is also the founder GMJC, and the architect of Magnitsky-style sanctions regimes in the United States and elsewhere.

Other recipients of the 2025 awards include Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya; her husband, opposition leader and former prisoner Siarhei Tsikhanouski; Lithuanian former Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis; Cuban journalist Abraham Jiménez Enoa; Salvadoran human rights lawyer Ruth López; Eritrean human rights activist Vanessa Tsehaye; Egyptian political prisoner Alaa Abd El-Fattah; and women's rights activist Laila Soueif.

Wanted for UK-based Activism

Cheung, who attended her first pro-democracy rally in Hong Kong in 2019 at the age of 14, moved to the UK the following year with her family after Beijing imposed its National Security Law on the former British colony.

She continued campaigning in the UK by setting up multiple activist groups in the city of Leeds and working for the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, during and after high school.

In December 2024, the Hong Kong Police issued arrest warrants for six exiled campaigners, including then-19-year-old Cheung, and set a bounty of HK$1 million (about $128,000) on each individual.

The activists were accused of crimes including incitement to secession, subversion, and collusion with foreign forces.

Speaking in August on NTD's "British Though Leaders" program, Cheung told host Lee Hall that friends and family have cut ties with her following the police warrant for fear of retaliation from authorities.

She also said she was followed earlier this year by two suspicious men who appeared to be Chinese.

"I don't know whether they are Chinese spies, or whether they are crazy random strangers or Chinese 'patriots' that recognize my face," she said. "I don't know who they are, but I was pretty sure that they are trying to intimidate me or threatened me."

In March, Cheung told lawmakers on the Joint Committee on Human Rights that since she was placed on the wanted list, she had been beset with "a barrage of sexual harassment messages and threatening comments on social media," including those calling for an increased reward to incentivize her capture.

Cheung is the third Hong Kong recipient of a Magnitsky Award.

In 2020, activist and former legislator Nathan Law received the Magnitsky Award for Outstanding Young Human Rights Activist. In 2023, jailed media mogul Jimmy Lai received the award for outstanding journalism.

From The Epoch Times