Pro-Democracy Lawmaker Ted Hui Speaks From Exile in the UK

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Do you feel safe? Do you feel at ease to speak now that you’re out of Hong Kong? Because you had a pretty daring escape.

TED HUI, FORMER HONG KONG PRO-DEMOCRACY LAWMAKER: Yes, finally, I can breathe in free air away from Hong Kong. I feel much safer here. And so I feel responsible for speaking for freedom of Hong Kong now here.

AMANPOUR: Let me just go back quickly, because I think people will be pretty interested to hear how you got out. You essentially — you did — you jumped bail and you left. But it was a quite an interesting plan and plot that was conjured up. Can you just walk us through it? Because it involved the former prime minister of Denmark and a whole load of people.

HUI: Yes, I’m grateful to my Danish friends I made in March this year. So, we had contact beforehand. And so they invited me to — on my official visit basis to talk about environmental issues, green topics like climate change. And so they sent the program to me. And I sent the program to the police. So I didn’t know before I landed Denmark that they actually changed the program for me to talk about Hong Kong’s human rights situations. So, I — my Danish friends smart enough of not telling me beforehand, but they actually — it’s like smuggling me out of Hong Kong. So, I have the chance of speaking in free air now because of that.

AMANPOUR: So, that is really interesting. You had a lot of international help there, a lot of friends. Of course, the authorities there have — are pretty mad at you. And you kind of have an option, I guess, you activists these days, get out or go to jail. That seems to be what’s happening. And we know Nathan Law, a fellow activist and a friend of yours, has also come out. He’s in the U.K. What do you feel about being out of that situation with so many of your activists still there? And what was it like to reunite with Nathan?

HUI: It is very heavy, a very heavy decision for me to leave Hong Kong, perhaps permanently. And, of course, seeing all my friends and freedom fighters still in Hong Kong, many in jails and many about to go to jail, and it makes me feel really responsible, like bearing Hong Kong on my shoulders, that it’s my lifelong mission now. I need to talk about and speak to international community about how they can help in building freedom back in Hong Kong. And so it is important for the world to know about the real situations. Hong Kong, for example, like nowadays in Hong Kong, if you even are chanting a slogan itself can lead you to life imprisonment, with a draconian national security law.