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WASHINGTON — <\/span>A prominent Hong Kong activist in exile in the U.S. said a court ruling back in Hong Kong to imprison her father<\/a> for eight months has only made her more determined to fight for the territory and its people. <\/p>\n \u201cI think obviously the (Hong Kong) government wants to use guilt, wants to use a lot of emotions to weight me down, but I’ve found my way to really find my calling in activism for Hong Kong,\u201d said Anna Kwok, who is wanted by the Hong Kong government for her pro-democracy activism.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I\u2019m not going to back down. I\u2019m just going to be more strategic with more long-term thinking and be more dedicated to the Hong Kong cause,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Kwok spoke with The Associated Press on Friday, one day after a Hong Kong court jailed her 69-year-old father, Kwok Yin-sang, for attempting to withdraw roughly $11,000 from her insurance policy. <\/p>\n Her father bought the policy when she was a toddler, and she gained control of it when she reached the age of 18. In 2025, he sought to terminate the policy and withdraw the money, the court heard. He was arrested and accused of trying to deal with funds belonging to an \u201cabsconder.\u201d <\/p>\n It was the first case targeting a family member of a pro-democracy advocate wanted by Hong Kong<\/a> to have been brought under a 2024 national security law<\/a>. <\/p>\n Anna Kwok, who is the executive director of the Washington-based Hong Kong Democracy Council, called the sentence \u201cridiculous\u201d and said it brought home the personal costs of her activism.<\/p>\n \u201cI did go through this journey of finding out what activism means to me, now with this added layer of … very real personal cost that is not faced by me but faced by my family,” she said.<\/p>\n Her father’s case drew criticism from the U.S. government. <\/p>\n Riley Barnes, the assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, called for Kwok Yin-sang’s immediate release. \u201cThe targeting of individuals who advocate for basic freedoms in Hong Kong and their families is unacceptable,\u201d Barnes wrote Thursday in a social media post.<\/p>\n