(Bloomberg) -- A BNP Paribas SA executive whose social media posts about the Hong Kong protests led to a public apology from the bank said he's choosing to focus on his activism after leaving the company.
“I harbor no ill feelings toward my former employer,” Jason Ng, former Asia-Pacific head of legal for debt capital markets at BNP, said Friday in a post on Facebook. “It has become clear to me that I can no longer juggle my day job and my activism work. If I must pick one, I will always choose the latter and I did.”
The post followed Ng's remarks earlier this month on the social-media site about a pro-Beijing group singing the Chinese national anthem at a shopping mall in the city's central business district. The French lender publicly apologized for the posting without identifying Ng, saying it had “spoken to the employee, who has since deleted the post, and we have taken immediate action regarding this matter.”
A BNP spokeswoman declined to comment on the matter. Ng didn't immediately respond to a request for further comment sent through Facebook.
Foreign companies are having to tread more carefully as tensions rise in the former British colony, where protests opposing an extradition bill have morphed into a mass repudiation of China's hold over Hong Kong. Banks including HSBC Holdings Plc and Standard Chartered Plc have called for a peaceful resolution to differences.
Read more: HSBC calls for peaceful ways to resolve Hong Kong issues
Verbal and physical scuffles broke out on Sept. 12 during a confrontation between groups singing the Chinese national anthem and others singing “Glory to Hong Kong,” which some demonstrators see as Hong Kong's anthem, at the centrally located IFC mall, according to footage broadcast on Cable TV. In his post Friday, Ng acknowledged that it was his earlier post about the protest that led BNP to issue its apology.
“It isn't my fault that I've become the latest target of vicious cyberbullying and doxxing,” Ng wrote Friday. “But that isn't the scary part. What worries me most is that the same can happen to anyone in Hong Kong. And it isn't right.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Alfred Liu in Hong Kong at aliu226@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Candice Zachariahs at czachariahs2@bloomberg.net, Daniel Taub, Jun Luo
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