Australia also said it was “concerned by the erosion of rights and freedoms”, adding that the security laws had “far-reaching impacts, including on individuals in Australia”.
Their comments come a day after Anne-Marie Trevelyan, UK minister of state for the Indo-Pacific, called the passport cancellations the “latest regrettable decision from Hong Kong authorities”.
“It is unacceptable to use these kinds of legal measures to try and punish freedom of expression in (Britain),” she wrote on social media platform X on Thursday.
A European Union spokesperson said on Thursday that the passport cancellations and other measures targeting the activists “seem to confirm our concerns about an extraterritorial application (of the security laws) to stifle dissent”.
Canada also raised the alarm about the “law’s broad definitions of national security offences” causing enforcement overreach.
“Canada deplores attempts by Hong Kong authorities to apply its national security legislation extraterritorially and will oppose any attempt to apply these laws within Canada,” it said.
The six activists had already been targeted with HK$1 million (US$128,000) bounties that Hong Kong issued last year, with authorities accusing them of committing national security crimes.
They are former lawmaker Nathan Law, veteran unionist Christopher Mung Siu-tat, and activists Finn Lau, Fok Ka-chi, Choi Ming-da and Simon Cheng.
