Samuel Chu is used to his phone, going rogue in the middle of the night,

buzzing, beeping, demanding his attention. He's an advocate for democracy in Hong Kong,

but he lives here in the U.S. That 15-hour time difference, it means that when news breaks back in China, he's usually fast asleep.

So when his phone started going off a couple weeks ago, he mostly just tried to ignore it.

But when I finally was bothered enough to actually pick up my phone to read,

I realized that this is breaking news, just a different kind of

breaking news, because it was my name that was appearing on the breaking news.

The breaking news? It was that the Chinese government had issued a warrant for Samuel's arrest.

The first two people that I actually picked up was one, just happened to be a reporter from Hong Kong,

actually, in Hong Kong, who called me, who, you know, who I actually know.

And she was like, well, I just want to check to see if you're okay.

And if you have a statement, and I would say, I literally, you're the first person I've spoken

to you since I found, I mean, I'm still in bed.

It really didn't hit me until I think like a few minutes after that, okay, like, this is about me specifically.

Samuel is an American citizen, but his organization, the Hong Kong Democracy Council,

it advocates for Hong Kong's protesters in Washington.

The warrant for Samuel's arrest was issued under Hong Kong's new security law.

That law includes these provisions that it applies to foreign nationals, even if they're on foreign soil. In fact, I was talking to

someone just the first few weeks after the national security law that they were joking that they

kind of wrote this law for you, Samuel. What did they mean by that?

That they, I think, read some of those provisions as almost targeting people and organization like mine.

Samuel is quick to note. He is totally safe. He hasn't even seen any documentary evidence of charges being filed against him.

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