Abdull Ghafar Khan

Abdull Ghafar Khan, better known as Phillip Khan, is a Hong Kong businessman and political activist. A Pakistani national born and raised in Hong Kong, Khan's ambitions to stand for election to the city's Legislative Council reportedly have been blocked by the refusal of the Hong Kong Immigration Department to consider his application for naturalisation as a Chinese national.

Early life Khan concurrently holds Pakistani nationality and British National (Overseas) status. His father came to Hong Kong in 1915, when the city was still ruled by the British Empire. During the 1980s, when the wave of emigration from Hong Kong was reaching its peak, Khan made the decision to remain in Hong Kong, stating that he saw it as his home.

2008 Minibond protests Khan suffered financial losses in the September 2008 bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers due to his investments in so-called "Minibonds" – structured financial products similar to equity-linked notes which were marketed to many members of the Hong Kong public with claims of being a safe and low-risk product. In the aftermath, he became involved in efforts to gain compensation for affected noteholders. In November 2008, Khan organised a protest march from Sogo Department Store in Causeway Bay to the Central Government Offices in Central; attendees shouted slogans calling for then-Chief Executive of Hong Kong Donald Tsang to step down and criticising the opacity of the banks' operations. The following month, when former US president Bill Clinton visited Hong Kong for the first annual meeting of the Clinton Foundation, Khan organised protests outside of the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong where Clinton was staying, in an attempt to draw attention to the issue. Roughly 90 people attended the protests.

Khan continued leading protest activities throughout 2009 and 2010. In January 2009, Khan and four fellow protestors collected signatures from over two thousand affected noteholders and set off for neighbouring Macau to submit a petition to then-Vice-President of the People's Republic of China Xi Jinping, who was visiting the city. In 2010, after Standard Chartered admitted that they had made errors in estimating the risk associated with Minibonds, Khan led a protest outside of the Legislative Council Building, during which he stood in the middle of the street in an attempt to block a Standard Chartered company bus from departing the scene.

Naturalisation attempts Khan has twice attempted to submit applications to the Hong Kong Immigration Department for naturalisation as a Chinese national; however, each time, the immigration officer on duty refused to accept his papers, stating that he did not have a close relative who was a Chinese national. According to an Immigration Department spokesperson, applications will be taken from all persons submitting them, but under the , the Department is not required to inform the applicant of the reason for rejection.

In October 2019, during the anti-extradition bill protests, after an attack on Civil Human Rights Front convenor Jimmy Sham by five unidentified men of South Asian ethnicity, online messages called for retaliatory attacks on the Kowloon Masjid and Islamic Centre, and Khan and several other Muslims were standing outside the masjid to protect it when on them and the masjid. Khan rejected police descriptions of the spraying as accidental and stated it was an "insult to Islam". Khan, along with then-Legislative Council member Jeremy Tam and Indian Association of Hong Kong president , subsequently filed a report with the Complaints Against Police Office regarding the spraying.

Khan unsuccessfully ran for a seat on Yau Tsim Mong District Council, in Tsim Sha Tsui West constituency, during the November 2019 local elections.