Canada follows peers, blasts Hong Kong bounties that include Edmonton-born activist

Ottawa is condemning Hong Kong officials for issuing bounties for the arrest of eight activists living abroad, days after Canada’s peers slammed the move.

Hong Kong’s national-security law restricts civil liberties in the territory, which is a special administrative region within China but was guaranteed certain democratic freedoms when Britain handed over the former colony in 1997.

Officials announced on Monday that eight pro-democracy activists who are charged under the law are the subject of bounties, with authorities offering the equivalent of roughly $170,000 for information leading to an arrest.

Edmonton-born Dennis Kwok, who renounced his Canadian citizenship when he became a Hong Kong legislator in 2012, is on that list.