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       Agnes Chow, a Hong Kong Activist, Fled to Canada and Isn’t Likely to Return

       Ms. Chow said she had to make a “patriotic” visit to the mainland to get her passport back. The Hong Kong police condemned her intention to “openly jump bail.”

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       Agnes Chow, a Hong Kong pro-democracy activist, being arrested by police at her home in Tai Po, Hong Kong, in August 2020. Credit...Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

       By Tiffany May

       Reporting from Hong Kong

       Dec. 4, 2023

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       Agnes Chow, a prominent pro-democracy activist in Hong Kong who was arrested as part of a sweeping crackdown, said over the weekend that she had fled to Canada and planned to skip bail, in a bold challenge to the authorities.

       Ms. Chow had been arrested in 2020, along with several other dissidents, including the newspaper mogul Jimmy Lai, after Beijing imposed a national security law on Hong Kong to curb dissent. The authorities were investigating Ms. Chow on suspicion of collusion with external elements, a vaguely defined political crime that carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. She was later released on bail.

       Ms. Chow wrote in an Instagram post on Sunday that she had traveled to Canada in September to study at a university. She said she had decided not to return to Hong Kong in December to report to the police, as the authorities had requested. “Perhaps I will never go back again in my lifetime,” she wrote.

       Hong Kong’s national security police condemned her expressed intention to “jump bail” and urged her to “immediately turn back.” In a statement on Monday, the Hong Kong government said that it would “spare no effort” in bringing Ms. Chow to justice and warned that she could not “evade legal liabilities by absconding.”

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       Tiffany May covers news from Asia. She joined The Times in 2017. More about Tiffany May

       A version of this article appears in print on Dec. 5, 2023, Section A, Page 9 of the New York edition with the headline: Hong Kong Activist Studying in Canada Won’t Return, Infuriating Beijing . Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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