'We know where your parents live': Hong Kong activists say Canadian police helpless against online threats

For Cherie Wong, the threats of rape and murdershe receives on social media are only a semi-constant reminderthat many supporters of theChinese Communist Partysee her as anenemy.

They'renot what scares her the most.

Back in January, Wong executive director and co-founder of Alliance Canada Hong Kong, a group pressing the Canadian government to defend the former British colony's democracy flew to Vancouver for events associated with the alliance's launch. Someonehad beenkeeping tabs on her, she said.

"My hotel room was booked by someone else as a security measure. And two days after the launch ... I received a threatening phone call to my hotel room demanding that I leave immediately, that these people are coming to collect me," she said.

"That was something that really shocked me."

Wong saidshe still doesn't know how her whereabouts were disclosed.She said shereported the call to the policebut was told there was little they could do.

Wong's experience is one of a number of disturbing incidents reported to a new parliamentary committee tasked with looking into Canada's fraught relationship with China. The committee's proceedings were interrupted by the Trudeau government's decision to prorogue Parliament until later this month.

Doxxed in the diaspora

Wong saidactivists in her group had a foretaste of the impotence of Canadian police in the face of suchharassment onAugust 17, 2019, when members ofthe Hong Kong diaspora rallied in 30 cities around the world to back Hong Kong's anti-extradition protests. They were met by counter-protesters waving Chinese flags.

Wong said shewas one of a number of protest participantswho were subsequently"doxxed" by online antagonists."They took photos of me and started digging up my personal information, my email address, where I was living, my phone number," she said."And [they] shared that kind of information maliciously through WeChat channels."

Hong Kong activists point to the similarities between the counter-protests that occurred in August 2019 in almost every city that saw pro-Hong Kong demonstrations as evidence that they are being centrally organized.

They point to the behaviour of thecounter-protesters, who often arrive and leave inlarge groups and carry brand-new Chinese flags with the ironing creases still visible. But they know that it'shard to prove top-down coordination.

"What we saw is a pattern, whether it is in Canada, in the U.S., in Germany in Japan in Taiwan," said Wong."The counter-protesters show up with Chinese flags singing the Chinese national anthem. Their slogans are similar: 'Hong Kong is a part of China', 'Say no to violence, say no to riots.'

"We have seen evidence of these counter-protesters being paid. We saw large scale coordination on WeChat and Weibo and I think there's more to be seen than just angry individuals."

WhileCBC News has not seen conclusive evidence that Hong Kong counter-protesters are being paid, ithas spoken to Canadians who received cash payments to appear at another pro-Beijing demonstration in support of detained Huawei executive Meng Wangzhou.

Wong said that while she doesn't object to counter-protesters exercising their right to free expression,she's alarmed by the fact that some of them have been spotted photographing pro-Hong Kong demonstrators.

"These individuals who show up to protest are also saying that they are part of the Chinese Communist Party, that they are sending this information back to the consulate, to the embassy," she said. "And coming from an authoritarian regime like the Chinese Communist Party,[which] has been known to conduct surveillance operations, suppression tactics, we can't just dismiss this as just counter-protesters."

A history of harassment

Phil Gurski heads Borealis Threat and Risk Consultingin Ottawa. Before joining the private sector he spentthreedecadesas a security intelligence analyst, much of itat theCanadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).

He saidChinese-Canadian dissidents have beenharassed in Canadaby organs of theChinese state "since Adam and Eve" butthe Chinese embassy would take care to avoid the appearance ofdirectinvolvementin the most provocative activities.

"Obviously the people in the embassy have to be a little more careful because they are here in Canada," he said."And if it is found out that they are engaged in activities not consistent with a diplomatic posting, they could in fact be declared persona non grata and expelled from the country."

Gurski saidChina can employ more subtleforms of pressure than loud aggressive counter-protests such asthreats and warnings issued directly to dissidents in person, by phone, or through social media.

That kind of pressure from diplomatic missions in Canada "is something we've been warning about for decades," he added.

And critics of the regime say thatthefact that many Chinese-Canadians still have family members in China gives Beijing durable leverage over them.

The embassy reacts

CBC News asked the Chinese embassy about some of the allegations of harassment that have emerged from the committee's hearings. The embassy didn't answer that question directlybut appeared to respond to another concern that came up at the Canada-China committee: the extraterritorial nature of China's new "national security" law, which makes no distinction between pro-democracy political activity in Hong Kong andsimilar protestsin Canada.

The law "only targets a very narrow category of acts that seriously jeopardize national security," the embassy said in a written statement.

"Hong Kong is under the rule of law, where no one has extra-judicial privilege. In any country, every right or freedom has its legal boundaries. In exercising rights or freedoms, one must abide by the requirements of law. Anyone who crosses the boundaries and limits of the law shall be brought to justice.

"Hong Kong is part of China and Hong Kong affairs are purely China's internal affairs. We urge the Canadian side to have a clear understanding of the reality and the overwhelming trend, and stop interfering in the affairs and judicial independence of Hong Kong SAR[Special Administrative Region]."

Hostages to fortune

"'We know where your parents live,'"saidCheuk Kwan of the Toronto Association for Democracy in China. "This is the phrase that they use all the time.

"You know, it could be just a little kind of phone call that says, 'Hey, by the way, I see your parents are doing well in ... somewhere.' You right away know that they know where your parents live.

"People would say, 'OK, I better be quiet, I better shut up or I better not do something.'And ... if you talk to people, the RCMP or CSIS, they will say, well, you can't prevent people from calling people up and saying, 'How are your parents doing?' Right?"

Gurski acknowledgesthat it's difficult for Canadian authorities to thwartthat kind of back-channel pressure.

"I absolutely agree [that] if these are people who are engaged in activity here in Canadawhich the government of the People's Republic of China would see as threatening or besmirching the reputation of the PRC, they would certainly reach out to them and threaten them exactly that way," he said.

"The problem is if I call up and say, 'Hey, how's Mom and Dad?', you and I may know exactly what I'm talking about, but how do you prove that is actually a very subtle yet very direct threat against one's family, with the intended impact that you'll stop what you're doing? And if you don't... then you may have something happen to your relatives back home?

"It may be as obvious as the nose on your face [but that's]just not the same as proving it in a court of law."

'In an authoritarian country, this kind of subtle threat is very deep in the sense that people have an awareness that you're supposed to act certain way when you receive a message like that," said Kwan.

"And I've seen a lot of people getting that even people in the Chinese-language media or editors of TV or newspapers, who might get a phone call from the Chinese consulate or their proxies ... saying, 'Hey, we don't like what you just published. Please be careful next time.'"

Kwan saidChinese authorities can deploy even more subtle forms of coercion, such as leaning on Beijing-friendly businesses to withholdadvertising spending fromcertainoutlets seen as hostile to Beijing.

Far from home, but not from fear

In the past, said Kwan,implied threats to family members were more alarming forimmigrants from mainland China than forHong Kong ex-pats who had reason to believe their families were safer. That'sbeginning to change, he added.

Davin Wong (no relation to Cherie) said he's feltthat change personally.The former acting head of the Student Union of the University of Hong Kong fled the island city last year following a targeted attack.He has no family members in mainland China.

"Canada, of course, is a society with greater freedom and at least I feel more secure here than in Hong Kong," he said. "But at the same time, what I have witnessed is that other activists who are fighting for Hong Kong in Canada ... were facing harassment or maybe intimidation as well. So I would say I do not feel entirely safe here ...

"I do have family members back in Hong Kong and that is one of the concerns that has always been in the back of my mind, because what we can see is that the freedom and also autonomy of Hong Kong has been deteriorating so fast in the past two years that Hong Kong is no longer a distinctive city apart from any other cities in China.

"I think it is fair to say that having family members back in Hong Kong ... feels as the same risk of having family members in China."

Wong said he applauds the Trudeau government's decision to end Canada's extradition treaty with Hong Kong in response to China'snew national security law. But he said the federalgovernment's efforts to help Hong Kong's pro-democracy camp would be better served by recognizingthat welcoming Hong Kong'sdissidents to Canada while leaving theirfamily members behind allows Beijing to maintain a hold over them.

"Activists like myself feel the same risk and the same pressure as if we hadn't left Hong Kong at all."