Hong Kong ex-lawmaker describes ‘Kafka-esque’ prison experience | Human Rights News

Claudia Mo says she read more than 300 books and brushed up on her French while in prison.

A former Hong Kong lawmaker who was jailed as part of a sweeping crackdown on dissent in the Chinese territory has described her prison experience as “Kafka-esque”.

Claudia Mo, a former journalist who co-founded the pro-democracy Civic Party, was released on Tuesday after more than four years behind bars for national security offences.

Mo, who was freed together with three other ex-politicians, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to subvert state power in 2022 in a mammoth national security case related to the participation of 47 activists in an unofficial primary election.

Another 44 activists pleaded guilty or were convicted in the landmark case, which was condemned by Western governments and rights groups as an example of Beijing trampling on freedoms in the former British colony.

In her first comments since her release, Mo said on Friday that she had read more than 300 books and brushed up on her French while in detention.

“Many thanks for all the concern and care expressed upon my release. Prison life was surreal, almost Kafka-esque to start with. But I didn’t suffer the two major incarceration traumas, loneliness and boredom, thanks to the social arrangements inside,” Mo said in a post on Facebook.

Mo thanked her supporters, including the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders and retired Roman Catholic Cardinal Joseph Zen, who was arrested on national security grounds in 2022 without being charged.

“My thoughts are with my co-defendants who remain in custody,” she said.

Once home to a vibrant political opposition and freewheeling media scene, Hong Kong was transformed into a polity with little space for dissent by the imposition of a sweeping Beijing-decreed national security law in 2020.

Beijing and the Hong Kong government have praised the legislation for restoring peace and order to the city after the eruption of often violent mass antigovernment protests in 2019.

On Friday, Hong Kong national security police arrested the father and brother of wanted activist Anna Kwok, the head of the Washington-based Hong Kong Democracy Council, on suspicion of handling her finances, local media reported.

Police said they arrested two men, aged 35 and 68, on suspicion of “attempting to deal with, directly or indirectly, any funds or other financial assets or economic resources” owned or controlled by “a relevant absconder”.