Personal information of Taiwanese Hong Kong democracy supporters included on pro-China doxxing website
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today, “severely condemned” the leaking of personal information of at least eight Taiwanese citizens on a website set up to expose the identities of Hong Kong pro-democracy supporters.
The website “Hong Kong Leaks” was set up in mid September, listing the names, dates of birth, social media accounts, phone numbers, and even residential addresses of people accused of “messing up Hong Kong”, along with profile pictures for easy identification.
After the original site, hosted using a Russian domain name, was blocked, Hong Kong Leaks continued to appear under successive top-level domains, such as .cc, and .kg. While those sites were also blocked, Taiwan English News managed to find the site still operating on two top-level domains.
According to a report in Liberty Times Network yesterday, October 15, the names and personal information of at least eight Taiwanese democracy supporters have been found on the site. Some even included the passport numbers of some of the individuals.
Taiwanese individuals exposed on the site include chairman of the Taiwan Statebuilding Party (基進黨) Shinichi Chen (陳奕齊), Taiwan Citizen’s Front founder Jiang Min-yan (江旻諺 ), and Taiwan Association for Human Rights secretary-general Qiu Yi-ling (邱伊翎).
The Hong Kong Leaks website divides named individuals into four categories: Poison Fruit Reporters, Hong Kong Independence Mob, Chaos Leaders, and Thugs. The three Taiwanese democracy activists named above are labeled “thugs.”
According to the Liberty Times report, one Taiwanese victim said that she was not a public figure, but since her personal information was revealed, she had received threats and intimidation from people using fake Facebook accounts.
The MAC released a written statement today that condemned the doxxing as a “despicable act” that will only increase opposition, and will not help to ease the situation in Hong Kong.
The MAC also recommended Taiwanese citizens avoid the scene of demonstrations in Hong Kong for their own safety, and if they find themselves in trouble in Hong Kong to contact the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office for assistance.
The Hong Kong Leaks website identifies hundreds of protesters, pro-democracy activists, and journalists. Many journalists from Hong Kong’s pro-democracy Apple Daily are identified as “poison fruit reporters.”
While the author of the site remains anonymous, Deutsche Welle reports that Sha Tin district councilor Sunny Chiu wrote on Facebook that one of the victims believes his information had been provided by Chinese police.
The victim had been temporarily detained at customs after police found pictures of the protests on his phone. The address provided on the doxxing site was the same false address he had provided to the Chinese police.
Sources: United Daily News, Liberty Times Network, Deutsche Welle.
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