Two years ago, not many people outside the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong would have heard the name Chow Hang-tung. Today, her name is on every Hongkonger’s lips. Some admire her as an outstandingly courageous woman, naming her “the real daughter of Hong Kong”; while others view her as a troublemaker, potentially breaking the National Security Law in Hong Kong. The rest — those who claim to be indifferent to politics — after reading the media reports on Chow’s biography cannot help sighing, “what a pity! With such a clever mind!”. Upon reading her transition from being a top student, a Cambridge graduate, and a barrister to being a prisoner, parents turn to their kids and lecture, “you better watch out, you don’t want to become another Chow Hang-tung.”
However, if more young people were equipped with Chow’s sharp-wittedness and her courage, the world would be filled with far less fear and much more joy.
From Hong Kong to Cambridge to China: an Unusual Journey
Born in 1985 Chow grew up in Hong Kong in a middle-class family. Her parents were concerned about China’s democratic movement and brought her to the candlelight vigil in Victoria Park on 4th June — a large-scale memorial to mark the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre in Beijing in 1989. Apart from the few years she was studying abroad, Chow has participated in this candlelight vigil every year since. From a young age, Chow was a top student and gained admission to the Department of Earth Sciences at Cambridge University as an outstanding student from Hong Kong.
When she was studying for her doctorate degree looking at earthquakes, the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake took place, killing over 69,000 people. Despite wanting to use her expertise to help, the Chinese government removed the data collection stations on Qinghai Plateau shortly after the earthquake for political reasons and she couldn’t proceed with her research. She realized then that the problem for China was not the lack of scientific research, but its faulty political system.[note 1] Upon this realization she discovered her passion was to bring change to China. She immediately gave up her studies and returned to Hong Kong, where she found a job in a labour organization which helped mainland Chinese workers safeguard their rights. While she was working, she became aware of how little she knew of the legal system and was surprised by the unfair rulings coming from judges despite their claim that China’s legal system respected the rule of law. Therefore, she decided to find out for herself and became a barrister in 2016.
Adopting the logic of the National Security Law in Hong Kong — isn’t it the Chinese government that prompted or even incited her to leave Cambridge University to focus on human rights in China, to become a barrister and then the vice-chairperson of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China (hereafter: HKA)[note 2]?
Commitment to the Human Rights Movement
Chow joined the HKA as a volunteer in 2010, and was elected as its vice-chairperson in 2015. She once said that she had meant to withdraw from HKA earlier, as she wanted to devote more time to the rights defense movement in China and she did not fully agree with HKA’s operation, believing that it was out of touch with the actual situation in China. However, after the Umbrella Movement in 2014, very few people were willing to join the HKA, let alone become an executive committee member or vice-chair. She found it difficult to leave and could not bear to see an organization of such great significance to the people of Hong Kong be deserted. But maybe the most decisive reason for her to stay in Hong Kong was that, since 2019, the Chinese government has not allowed her to enter mainland China. She could neither visit her boyfriend (now her fiancé) Ye Du — a well-known civil rights activist and dissident writer in China — nor continue her rights defense work on the ground there. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise. She escaped the fate of many activists in China, such as being forcibly disappeared (like Gao Zhisheng [note 3]), imprisoned and tortured (like Zhang Zhan [note 4]).
However, in Hong Kong, the situation was rapidly worsening. In 2020, 12 young Hong Kongers were intercepted by the Chinese coastguards while they were allegedly heading to Taiwan to seek asylum. Almost all the passengers were facing charges relating to the 2019 Anti-extradition Bill Amendment protests. They were detained in Shenzhen, the mainland city bordering Hong Kong and faced various charges. Though she could not enter China to help them personally, Chow joined the group #save12hkyouths with other civil society groups in Hong Kong, to monitor and report on the situation of the twelve detainees. As someone familiar with China’s legal system, Chow helped voice out the unfair judicial process they encountered and the case gained international attention.
HKA continued to face crackdowns and by the eve of 4th June 2021, its chairperson Lee Cheuk-yan and the other vice-chair Albert Ho [note 5] were imprisoned. Chow was determined to keep the Hong Kong people’s promise to the relatives of the victims of the Tiananmen Massacre. She would not retreat at the most difficult time for the organization.
Many Hong Kongers admire Chow for her fearlessness, without knowing that Chow learned to deal with the authoritarian regime from working in China over the years. To her, the mass arrest of human rights lawyers starting from 9th July 2015 [note 6], the ongoing torture and crackdowns of rights defenders and human rights lawyers were not new, but an everyday reality, saying “Our dear friends Xu Zhiyong, Li Qiaochu, Zhen Jianghua are arrested… I am aware of the reality and know what I should do. These experiences gave me courage.” [note 7] Her courage includes the readiness to be jailed.
The Courage of Not Being Intimidated By Her Sentence
In December 2021, Chow was charged for “incitement to knowingly take part in an unauthorized assembly” and “participating” in the same assembly, receiving sentences of 12 months and 6 months respectively, for lighting a candle in Victoria Park in Hong Kong on 4th June 2020.[note 8] She later announced that she would not appeal because “what should be said has been said, and the records that should be kept are also kept. The public know how to tell right from wrong.” and she does not need the authority’s endorsement.
This came after a previous arrest on the morning of 4th June 2021, when she was “preventatively arrested” and charged with “inciting others to participate in an unauthorized assembly”. On 4th January 2022, Magistrate Amy Chan Wai-mun convicted and sentenced Chow to another 15 months in prison (with five served concurrently). In total, Chow is serving 22 months of prison term for the two 4th June candlelight vigils, a remarkably long sentence for “supposedly” encouraging people to commemorate the victims of the Tiananmen Massacre. In the verdict, the magistrate mistakenly accused Chow of committing the offense while on bail and she was therefore given an additional three months of imprisonment. As a barrister and a defendant, Chow immediately responded by saying her previous charge required no bail because it was a summon case. After the prosecutor confirmed Chow’s claims, the magistrate still upheld her original sentencing saying this was simply a “technical problem” given Chow still breached the law pending the trial.[note 9] Such a judgement clearly illustrates the judge’s cluelessness and determination to deliver a heavy sentence, a worrying signal for Hong Kong’s judicial system.
At the same time, Chow now faces the charge of “inciting subversion of state power”, together with Lee Cheuk-yan and Albert Ho, the chair and vice-chair of HKA. The indictment states that they were suspected of inciting others to subvert the Chinese regime in Hong Kong between 1st July 2020 and 8th September 2021. In addition, Chow and four other executive committee members of the HKA were charged with “not complying with the requirement to provide information” under Article 43 of the National Security Law of Hong Kong, when the police accused HKA of being backed by “foreign agents” and demanded it to provide information for the police investigation. Chow and the members of HKA refused to spread fear for the police and turned down its request.[note 10] Both cases are arraigned to be reviewed before trial in January 2022.
Under the offense “inciting others to subvert state power”, if the circumstances are considered serious, they could be sentenced from five to ten years in prison. The offense of “failing to provide information in compliance with the requirement” is punishable by a fine of HK$100,000 and six months imprisonment.
Chow has been detained by the National Security Department of the Hong Kong Police since 8th September 2021, and all her applications for bail have been refused. Four United Nations human rights experts issued a statement on 12th October raising concerns about the fairness of trials under the National Security Law, citing Chow’s case in particular. They called out the judge (Peter Law Tak-chuen) who twice denied Chow bail on the grounds that she would continue to threaten national security if released; and refused to lift media reporting restrictions, stating that it was not in the interest of justice for the hearing to be reported, both of which lead to concerns about the lack of a fair trial. The human rights experts urged the Hong Kong government to repeal and independently review the National Security Law to ensure it is compatible with both international law and human rights standards.[note 11]
Thanks to independent journalists and her friends who have reported about her cases and visited her in prison, the outside world have been able to know of her situation and her defense.[note 12]
She once said that the prison conditions in Hong Kong are far better than in China [note 13] and even considered herself “bourgeois” compared to other prisoners, with her friends sending her supplies.[note 14] Although the Correctional Service officers would return the parcels to her friends after reviewing them, she still feels she is much luckier than others. The food she misses terribly is Sichuanese hotpot, which she cannot get in prison.
A Warrior at Court
In her defense statement, she wrote, “it is obvious to see that all my charges are related to the HKA and the [commemoration of] Tiananmen Massacre. The accusations add up and multiply, a vivid reflection of what the regime is planning to do: namely, step by step, suppress and destroy our memory of the [Tiananmen] Massacre.”[note 15]
As a barrister, she has fought many civil rights lawsuits and is well aware that what she faces are all political prosecutions.[note 16] Between 1989 and 2019, Hong Kong was the only Chinese city where citizens could dress in black, carry flowers and candles on 4th June without worrying they would be detained. However, China is getting impatient with the Hong Kongers’ freedom from fear. Using the National Security Law and abusing Hong Kong’s legal system, the Chinese government is getting rid of its dissidents and disbanding HKA (an organization which dares to call it a murderer) sending a warning to all Hong Kongers to end public mourning of the Tiananmen Massacre in Hong Kong.
Therefore, the authority, with the help of COVID-19 pandemic, came up with a perfect plot. Despite Hong Kong’s low incidence of COVID-19 cases and people having mostly resumed their normal life, the police still denied HKA’s application to stage an annual candlelight vigil in 2020 and 2021. In response to this decision, HKA announced the cancellation of the candlelight vigil in Victoria Park but urged people to light candles and observe a moment of silence, individually or online, wherever they are. As HKA’s vice-chair and someone who joined the Victoria Park vigils each year, Chow decided to light her candle in Victoria Park on her own. Although HKA’s vigil did not take place, the prosecution still claimed that as Chow was in Victoria Park in 2020, and planned to go there in 2021, she was “inciting others” to go there and should be preventatively detained. Her personal liberty and freedom of assembly was entirely disregarded. In a further step, the police forced HKA to disband on 25th September 2021.
Though the evidence is weak and the logic of her arrest is absent, the Department of Justice and the legal system as a whole is now in the hands of the Office for Safeguarding National Security. Many defendants know that the courtrooms are no longer a place for genuine legal debates and seeking justice. Instead they choose to plead guilty in the hope of being given a more lenient sentence — reducing the suffering, time and cost of lengthy trials. However, Chow refused to play along. Despite her lack of internet and without access to the reference documents she needed, she still wrote many astonishing defense statements and commentaries, such as this commentary on the charges HKA members are facing:
“All the smearing and stigmatization engineered in the name of law is inherently politics. The [problematic] logic of the laws and the [strange] calculation of sentences force us to remain silent, to cooperate and to plead guilty. Hence law tamed resistance and opened a new wide platform for the powerful to present their narratives. In that case, only their version of ‘facts’ can stand and last no matter whether it can be proved in law or not (in political cases the proof of innocence is almost certainly required), and therefore their narrative will become ‘the only truth’.”
For Chow, pleading guilty is a hurdle she cannot overcome:
“I can’t on one hand admit no wrong and say that the government is misinterpreting and abusing the law, and on the other hand plead guilty i.e. admitting that I am guilty because the law is what they call it… You can force me on bitter manual tasks — like washing the toilet — and eating smelly porridge but you can’t force me to speak contrary to my mind. You can even force me to shut up but you can’t force me to utter what I do not believe.”[note 17]
It is her strategy not to plead guilty. For political cases like hers, as long as the hearings continue, each step, debate and development would be reported and discussed. The case would be in the public gaze extensively, people can have a better understanding of its development and the judge cannot make a hasty verdict by simply delivering the “official narrative”. Detainees of cases under National Security Law are unlikely to be granted bail and their sentences often are long. If she refuses to plead guilty, she can prolong the legal procedure, winning more time and the chance to defend in the courtrooms, instead of being shut quietly behind bars for years.[note 18]
She is a staunch fighter. Her friends worry about her fate, saying the price she pays is too high or even call her “Unfortunate Tung” (a play on “Hang” which in Cantonese means “fortunate”). But she always faces her destiny with laughter. Every time after she argues with the judge and the prosecutor, or delivers a speech in court, she can’t help laughing. She laughs so much, judge even had to ask her not to laugh when she was answering questions.[note 19] Yet, in the face of such absurd accusations and a sham legal system, laughing while defending is more inspiring than remaining silent or delivering a tearful confession.
Many Hong Kongers are grateful that in such a difficult time, Chow still demonstrates how not to be overwhelmed by fear and give up their rights without a fight. Even though she knows her defense cannot save her from imprisonment, she makes sure the ridiculousness and cluelessness of the judges and prosecutors are recorded for history. She shows that everyone should be able to defend themselves and they do not need the authorities to endorse their story. Let’s hope that in the near future, her defense statements and commentaries will be published and circulated freely, to tell everyone that during the darkest time of Hong Kong’s judicial history, there are still people who insist on standing up and speaking out.
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Notes:
- https://ol.mingpao.com/ldy/cultureleisure/culture/20210502/1619893464447/%7B不退達人%7D鄒幸彤-權利-不行使就會失去, accessed on 28 January 2022.
- HKA was an organization established in Hong Kong shortly before the Tiananmen Massacre on 4th June1989. The organization’s main goals were the rehabilitation of the democracy movement and the accountability for the massacre. Between 1990 and 2019, it held a candlelight vigil on 4th June each year in Victoria Park, Hong Kong Island, which was well attended and widely reported. Due to its stance, the Chinese government considers it subversive and it was forced to disband in 2021.
- https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/08/bravest-lawyer-china-gao-zhisheng/, accessed on 28 January 2022.
- https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/case/woman-human-rights-defender-zhang-zhan’s-health-deteriorates-prison-after-torture-and-hunger, accessed on 28 January 2022.
- https://medium.com/@the29principles?p=228654a2dd92, accessed on 28 January 2022.
- https://time.com/3954935/china-arrests-lawyers-human-rights/, accessed on 28 January 2022.
- https://ol.mingpao.com/ldy/cultureleisure/culture/20210502/1619893464447/%7B不退達人%7D鄒幸彤-權利-不行使就會失去, accessed on 28 January 2022.
- https://www.inmediahk.net/node/社運/六四31年集會案-八人判囚45至14個月, accessed on 28 January 2022. Zhen Jianghua was released from prison on 8 November 2019.
- https://www.rfi.fr/cn/港澳台/20220104-支聯會鄒幸彤呼籲悼念六四裁定煽惑罪成-為-六四-共服刑22個月, accessed on 28 January 2022.
- https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/trad/chinese-news-58511517, accessed on 28 January 2022.
- https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=27648&LangID=E&fbclid=IwAR3_Nw_FoZguDyg6WoMuuXulB4EXmm5C0cfeA1DmYKeG6LXBfkNcL7a5ozg, accessed on 28 January 2022.
- https://www.patreon.com/chowhangtung, accessed on 28 January 2022.
- https://www.inmediahk.net/node/社運/鄒幸彤：有名有姓嘅人係承載無名氏嘅付出，先得到關注同光環, accessed on 28 January 2022.
- https://www.hkcnews.com/article/44817/鄒幸彤-還柙-保釋-44821/鄒幸彤的坐監修煉-以幽默面對荒謬-「坐監唔係終點，仍可繼續抗爭」, accessed on 28 January 2022.
- https://theinitium.com/article/20211025-note-tonyee-chow-self-defense/, accessed on 28 January 2022.
- https://www.harcourtchambers.com/members/chow-hang-tung/, accessed on 28 January 2022.
- https://www.patreon.com/posts/wei-shi-mo-bu-i-58640661, accessed 28 January 2022.
- https://www.patreon.com/posts/wei-shi-mo-bu-i-58640661, accessed on 28 January 2022.
- https://www.facebook.com/tonyeechowpages/posts/207409514861890/, accessed on 28 January 2022.