A bill introduced in the House of Representatives would erect the street sign "Jimmy Lai Way" on a stretch alongside the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in Washington's bustling Dupont Circle area.
"We want to remind every HKETO employee of their part in dismantling the freedoms that once made Hong Kong the most vibrant and prosperous city in Asia," said Representative Chris Smith, the Republican co-chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, which examines rights in the country.
While Congress has less jurisdiction outside of Washington, the bill would also direct the US Postal Service to deliver mail to Hong Kong's offices in New York and San Francisco if they are addressed to "1 Jimmy Lai Way" in either city.
There was no immediate timetable to act upon the proposal. The bill had co-sponsors from the Democratic Party but met opposition from the capital's non-voting delegate to Congress, Democrat Eleanor Holmes Norton.
"No matter how well-intentioned an initiative is, it is never appropriate for members of Congress not elected by DC residents to legislate on local DC matters, particularly quintessentially local ones like street names," she said.
Lai was the founder of the Apple Daily, a now-shuttered Chinese-language newspaper that championed mass demonstrations in 2019 aimed at safeguarding democratic liberties promised when Beijing took control of the former British colony.
China quelled dissent after the protests, some of which involved vandalism, including through a tough security law.
Lai, now 77, has been behind bars since December 2020.
He testified for more than 50 days, concluding last month, as he fights charges of foreign collusion under the law that could carry a sentence of life in prison.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a recent interview that Lai's case was a "priority".
Rubio on Monday imposed sanctions on Hong Kong's police chief, justice secretary and other officials on human rights grounds over the crackdown in the city.
The bill on the street name calls on Rubio to look at sanctions on additional officials specifically involved in Lai's detention and prosecution.
Renaming streets has long been a means to embarrass countries about their rights records.
Russia's embassy in Washington lies on Boris Nemtsov Plaza, named for the reformist politician killed near the Kremlin in 2015, and the Saudi embassy is on Jamal Khashoggi Way, named for the dissident writer who was strangled to death and dismembered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
Both streets were renamed by votes of the DC City Council.
Congress separately moved to name the plaza outside of China's embassy for Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Prize-winning writer and democracy activist who died in prison, but the effort floundered after intense opposition from Beijing.
Other governments have sometimes acted similarly with the United States. The street outside the US consulate in Kolkata is named for Vietnamese revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh.
Hong Kong's new police chief stresses national security despite US sanctions
Hong Kong (AFP) April 2, 2025 -
Hong Kong's new police chief on Wednesday stressed the need to protect national security following US sanctions on his predecessor and five other officials over Beijing's crackdown on human rights.
The United States on Monday imposed sanctions on officials accused of eroding Hong Kong's autonomy and "acts of transnational repression" -- referring to the city's use of national security laws to "intimidate, silence and harass" activists abroad.
Hong Kong authorities have condemned the sanctions and defended their use of the laws, while Beijing has vowed "countermeasures".
Police commissioner Raymond Siu, one of the six people sanctioned, retired on Tuesday after nearly four years in charge.
His replacement Joe Chow, 52, said he was not worried about the sanctions and that national security was the "most important" priority.
"The US sanctions are barbaric acts attempting to intimidate... police officers, so that we will stop working hard on national security," Chow told reporters on Wednesday.
"This shows that (the United States) considers our actions to be successful and effective. This means we should do more of it."
Chow, who joined the force in 1995, is best known for overseeing the police siege of Hong Kong's Polytechnic University in November 2019 at the height of the mass pro-democracy protests.
That operation saw the most violent clashes between protesters and police and ended with 1,377 arrests.
Beijing has since quashed dissent in Hong Kong using a sweeping national security law it imposed on the city.
Using powers under the security law, authorities have placed bounties on a total of 19 overseas democracy advocates since 2023, while scores of opposition figures have been arrested and jailed in Hong Kong.
Some of the named activists -- including UK-based Tony Chung and Carmen Lau and Australia-based Ted Hui and Kevin Yam --- last month reported being targeted by anonymous letters promising hefty rewards for people who inform on them.
Hong Kong officials have denied any involvement in the letters.
Chow told AFP the bounties were a "very sensitive" matter and declined to say if more were in the pipeline.
At the news conference, he said Hong Kong society had returned to stability but there were still "undercurrents everywhere" and warned of "soft resistance" via the arts, culture and media sectors.
Asked if more public protests will be permitted under his tenure, Chow said it depended on event specifics and added that police would conduct threat assessments.
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