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Berlin: The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bamf) in the Bundesallee (archive picture)
Photo: Jens Kalaene / dpa
Germany has granted asylum to a refugee from the Chinese Special Administrative Region for the first time since the controversial Hong Kong Security Act came into force.
This comes from the asylum statistics of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees for September, which is available to the German Press Agency.
The Hong Kong government had already asked Consul General Dieter Lamlé for an interview on Wednesday after initial reports on such a case.
According to figures from the Federal Office, a total of three decisions on asylum applications were made by citizens of the former British colony of Hong Kong in the first nine months of this year.
Two were negative, one was positive in September.
In addition, further cases of refugees from Hong Kong could be hidden in the statistics for Chinese citizens without special status.
For the whole of China, including Hong Kong, asylum was granted in a total of 61 out of 416 cases between January and September.
On Monday, the Hong Kong activist group Haven Assistance announced on Facebook that a 22-year-old supporter of the protest movement in Germany had received political asylum.
The student is called Elaine and claims to have applied for asylum in Germany at the end of last year.
She came to Germany in November after being temporarily arrested at a demonstration in Hong Kong, says the dpa student.
"I am grateful to the German government for providing me with everything I need."
For security reasons, Elaine doesn't want to say where she is currently.
The asylum notice that the dpa has received dates from September 4th and was given to her on October 14th.
She can imagine that Hong Kong's new security law was "one of the factors" in deciding on her asylum application, she says.
After months of mass protests against the government, China passed the highly controversial law in late June.
It is directed against activities that China sees as subversive, separatist or terrorist.
Since July 1, 1997, Hong Kong has been part of China again, but is governed according to the principle of "one country, two systems".
The agreement from then actually provides that Hong Kongers will enjoy "a high degree of autonomy" and many freedoms for 50 years until 2047.
The security law is now considered to be the most far-reaching encroachment on this autonomy and gives China's state security far-reaching powers.
Further tensions between Germany and China are possible
Two prominent Hong Kong activists had already received political asylum in Germany in 2018, which led to protests by the Chinese leadership.
As in the past, the government in Hong Kong called the German Consul General for an interview, which this time the Deputy Prime Minister Matthew Cheung led.
If the reports on the granted refugee status were received, this would be "decidedly rejected", it said in a statement afterwards.
Cheung said that foreign governments should not interfere in the internal affairs of Hong Kong and China.
Granting asylum would send the wrong message to criminals that they could evade prosecution, it said.
The confirmation of the granting of asylum could now lead to further tensions between Germany and China.
The federal government had already reacted to the security law with sanctions.
An extradition agreement for criminals with Hong Kong has been suspended and the export of goods that could be used by the police or other government agencies to suppress or monitor the population has been suspended.
The Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had forbidden any outside interference during a visit to Berlin in early September.
China's actions in Hong Kong fall "under the category of internal China affairs," he said.
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wit / dpa