The Persecution of the League of Social Democrats
#7 in the Hong Kong Repression Monitor series
The Hong Kong Repression Monitor series provides overviews of indicators of repression in Hong Kong, based on research and data collected from 2019 to the present. For more information, see this introduction, which also provides a full list of entries in the series as they are published.
This article is #7 in the Hong Kong Repression Monitor series. It has several parts: an introduction, background on the League of Social Democrats, a timeline of key incidents of persecution since 2020, a list of LSD leaders and their arrests, citations, trials and imprisonments, and, finally, two recent statements made by LSD’s founder, Leung Kwok-hung (Long Hair) from prison.
UPDATE: On September 3, 2025, former LSD vice-chair Yu Wai-pan was surprisingly acquitted of “displaying bills or posters on government land without permission” for a street station in September 2022. Of the 45 prosecutions of LSD members to date, this is the first acquittal. His two co-defendants had already plead guilty.
UPDATE: On June 29, 2025, League of Social Democrats disbanded. It was the last active pro-democracy political party in Hong Kong.
The League of Social Democrats is the last pro-democracy political party still active in Hong Kong. Just last week, the Democratic Party announced it is starting the process of disbanding, but in fact it has been more or less moribund for the past five years. As the “last man standing,” LSD is the canary in the coal mine, posing a test: to what extent will the regime tolerate even a modicum of dissent or opposition? The answer is, clearly, hardly at all, as LSD has been repeatedly targeted for persecution in a wide variety of ways:
LSD members have been threatened with arrest if they take part in protest actions;
and have been visited at home by police and warned against taking protest actions.
LSD members’ homes have been searched by police and they suspect their homes are monitored by police.
LSD’s had its party bank accounts closed by HSBC and the bank accounts of individual members closed by HSBC, Hang Seng Bank and Bank of China.
LSD’s had its PayPal account terminated, which together with HSBC closing its accounts has made fundraising exceedingly difficult.
Twenty of its members and friends were prevented from going for a hike in the hills surrounding Hong Kong on grounds that they may be in breach of the national security law.
Two leaders of LSD are currently serving long prison sentences on national security charges: Leung Kwok-hung (six years and nine months) and Jimmy Sham (four years and three months). UPDATE: Jimmy Sham was released from prison on May 30, 2025.)
In all, 19 LSD members have been arrested 34 times, cited 24 times (ie, issued citations and fined), preventively detained 1 time; prosecuted 45 times; and sentenced to prison 15 times for a total of 25 years and 1 month.
This list of the dastardly “crimes” LSD members are alleged to have committed may give some sense of the extent to which the law has been weaponized to persecute the regime’s political opponents:
flying a balloon in controlled airspace (near Hong Kong government headquarters; the balloon read “free all political prisoners”)
littering (for leaving protest props at the scene of a small protest)
displaying posters on government land without permission (again, for a small protest)
displaying posters in public without permission
fundraising in a public place without a permit (for having QR codes on street station banners)
disorderly conduct (for objecting to rough treatment by police outside the courthouse of the HK47 trial)
organizing an unlawful assembly
participating in an unlawful assembly
inciting unlawful assembly
causing an annoyance
violating the mask order (for momentarily lifting a mask away from his face in order to shout during the pandemic outside HK47 trial to protest police treatment)
failure to submit info in compliance w/ notification requirements (under the national security law, in regard to info about the leading NGO, Civil Human Rights Front, of which two leaders of LSD were leaders)
participating in a prohibited group gathering (deployed against protesters during the COVID pandemic)
contempt of the Legislative Council (for protesting in the chamber while a Legco member; previously it was presumed that the law did not apply to Legco members)
conspiracy to subvert state power (under the national security law, for taking part in a pro-democracy primary election)
During this period when LSD has attempted to remain active, other pro-democracy parties have formally disbanded. Demosistō was the first, doing so just before the CCP’s imposition of the national security law in Hong Kong in June 2020. They were followed by the Neo Democrats (disbanded June 2021), Civic Passion (disbanded September 2021) and the Civic Party (May 2023). Other pro-democracy parties that used to exist have simply faded away without a word. The leaders of just about all of them are either in prison or exile. This is amidst a full-scale crackdown on independent civil society, with 96 organizations having been forced to close in the past five years due to state repression.
One might ask what is even the point of a pro-democracy political party in a system that formally excludes all opposition from even running for office: due to the regime’s changes of electoral laws in 2021, all candidates are now required to swear loyalty to the regime and face arbitrary disqualification by a pro-government panel. This has lead to the regime’s desired outcome: now 100 percent of the seats on the Legislative Council and District Councils are filled by “patriots,” and these chambers are essentially little more than yes-saying rubber-stamp mechanisms meant to present the illusion of a pluralistic polity; ie, fake.
Still, in the face of this disastrous situation, LSD has sought to persevere. And it’s not as if LSD has even been pushing hard or taking aggressive actions. Instead, it’s held street stations and small protests of no more than a handful of people, usually outside of government headquarters where they are surrounded by dozens of police who search and ID them; that is, when they’re allowed to at all—other times they’ve been threatened to not take actions. Even these actions that were once simply a part of normal political life in Hong Kong have proven too much for the regime, evidence of just how basic human rights like freedoms of assembly, association and expression and the right to political participation have been suffocated to near extinction.
This is what it’s like trying to operate as a pro-democracy political party in Hong Kong today; in short, well-nigh impossible. The mere effort elicits constant persecution and surveillance.
Below is 1) some background on the League of Social Democrats, 2) a timeline of key incidents of persecution they have faced, 3) a list of arrests, citations, prosecutions, convictions and imprisonments of LSD leaders, and 4) two statements by LSD’s founder, Leung Kwok-hung (Long Hair), since having been taken into long-term detention.
Background on League of Social Democrats
In one sense, the persecution of League of Social Democrats since the 2019 protests is not new. As far back as 2017, I wrote about how LSD and Demosistō were being singled out by the regime for retribution and the legal system was being weaponized against them. In fact, this went all the way back to the Umbrella Movement in 2014, but as the regime felt increasingly threatened by the electoral successes of pro-democracy political parties in the post-Umbrella period, it began to devise ever more ways to persecute them, and since LSD and Demosistō were among those most willing to push the envelope, they got the brunt of the harsh treatment.
Among Hong Kong pro-democracy political parties, LSD was the one closest in outlook to a European social democratic party, at least until young activists founded Demosistō after the Umbrella Movement. LSD spoke out for the marginalized and disadvantaged and advocated for a stronger social safety net and a more equal distribution of wealth in one of the most economically unequal societies in the world.
In spite of its moderate political platform, LSD had a reputation as “radical.” This was largely due to its style, as embodied in its founder and leader Leung Kwok-hung. His nickname, Long Hair, which is probably more widely used than his actual name, says it all: He was the only prominent politician with long hair. He frequently sported Che Guevara t-shirts and in general exuded a romantic attitude about leftist revolution while at the same time being resolutely opposed to Chinese Communist Party dictatorship. One of my more enduring images from the early years of LSD is of one of its founders and Legco representative Wong Yuk-man throwing bananas at Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang upon the latter’s visit to Legco. Wong was protesting how lacking in generosity and compassion the government was toward elderly and impoverished Hong Kongers, the bananas symbolizing the token “fruit money” they received (so-called because it was supposed to be enough for them to afford to buy fruit). Such stunts are what earned LSD its “radical” image.
(I think he deliberately missed. That was in 2008. It feels like the stone age now. Flash forward to 2017 and another LSD leader, Avery Ng, was convicted of “common assault” and sentenced to three weeks in prison for throwing a tuna sandwich in the direction of then-Chief Executive CY Leung, in what became known as the “tuna sandwich assault.” He also missed. At his sentencing, Ng said to the judge, “I hope you understand that no deterrent sentence will work on me.” He added he felt "deeply honoured" to speak out for Hong Kong's underprivileged; some four in ten elderly people in HK lived in poverty. "They don't have any dignity. A sandwich could be a luxury for them.")
I found Wong Yuk-man to be somewhat demagogic and was actually relieved when, not long after LSD’s founding, he bolted from LSD and founded yet another party, People Power. By contrast, Long Hair was always humorous, light-hearted, laid back, easy going, the sort who would talk with anyone, and under his leadership, this was the tone and style of the party as a whole. They shrugged off injustice with a laugh and persevered.
LSD also advocated and practiced civil disobedience and direct action as legitimate means to political ends and remained resolutely nonviolent. One of its most famous t-shirts simply had silhouettes of the figures of King, Liu Xiaobo, Mandela and Gandhi with the words “civil disobedience.” This too, at least up until the 2014 Umbrella Movement, could strike quite a few Hong Kongers as “radical.”
Other prominent pro-democracy parties such as the Democratic Party and Civic Party largely had little to nothing to say on issues of economic justice and seemed to pretty much support the neo-liberal economic paradigm that reigned in Hong Kong from the 1990s onward, largely due to a kind of conspiracy of powerful forces: the CCP and its puppet government in Hong Kong, Hong Kong tycoons, and global finance.
One of the reasons I was attracted to LSD is that it was made up of ordinary people and spoke up for ordinary people . (In contrast, for example, Civic Party had an image as the party of lawyers and others in the professional classes.) LSD stuck close to its roots: the vast swathes of public housing estates that covered large portions of Kowloon and beyond. (To this day, something around 50 percent of Hong Kong people live in subsidized public housing because they can’t afford shelter at market rates.) In the public housing estates, you could always find the offices of the largest pro-CCP party, the DAB, because of its massive resources, and sometimes the offices of the Democratic Party, the biggest pro-democracy party, but beyond that, there was little on-the-ground pro-democracy presence. LSD didn’t have the money for many permanent offices, but they were the sorts who were always present in what I called “estate land.”
In some respects, after the Umbrella Movement and the refusal of the CCP to allow the implementation of genuine universal suffrage as promised, in that post-Umbrella period when there were so many changes in the political landscape and new ideas such as self-determination and independence arose, LSD could seem downright old-fashioned: it stuck to the same old principles. It never questioned Hong Kong’s status as a part of China; it simply wanted both Hong Kong and China to be democratic. I remember meeting Long Hair on the street on June 21, 2019, the day of the siege of police headquarters in response to the police’s mass attack on demonstrators on June 12. The streets were full of a whole new crop of young people Long Hair and I had never seen at protests. I asked him what he thought of all this. While I fully supported young people stepping up and taking the lead, he was skeptical of their decision-making and went so far as to suspect that perhaps some of those advocating independence were in fact CCP plants. Really? I thought. Maybe Long Hair’s becoming an old man.
But LSD actually did a better job than the other more established pro-democracy parties in cultivating a new generation of leadership, and at the time of the 2019 protests, young people like Jimmy Sham, Raphael Wong, Avery Ng and Figo Chan were rising to the fore.
Unlike other pro-democracy parties, almost all of LSD’s members have remained in Hong Kong since the crackdown began. Relative to the other parties, LSD is not so worldly. Many members speak English poorly or hardly at all. Only one has ever lived elsewhere (Australia). Few have university degrees. I know of only two members who have gone abroad, and one other who sometimes visits relatives abroad. Otherwise, the others are still in Hong Kong.
LSD was also one of only a couple of pro-democracy political parties without any women in prominent roles. And it could have at times something of a macho air about it. I remember attending one of its first fundraising banquets, not long after the party launched. They were selling a red t-shirt with the figures of the three founding leaders, Long Hair, Wong Yuk-man and Albert Chan looking like superheroes. I remember finding it distastefully macho. So it is a bit ironic that now, in this period of intense repression, its leader is a woman, Chan Po-ying, though it is worth adding that she is the wife of Long Hair and stepped up only after almost all of the other leaders were sent to prison.
LSD has always had this air of being there through thick and thin. They obviously aren’t doing it for power or money or popularity because there’s none of that; just the opposite: the only thing you can be sure of is that trouble will come your way. They are doing it because it is who they are and what they believe in. I remember the first time I met Long Hair. It was shortly after I moved to Hong Kong, decades ago. I knew almost nothing about the scene. I turned up for a June 4 event at the University of Hong Kong. When I got there, the only person who’d arrived was Long Hair. I saw him standing alone midway up a long flight of red brick steps, holding a banner, as cool as could be. And there, in a way, he and the others have always remained. So it’s not that surprising that it’s the last pro-democracy party standing, albeit embattled and in a very reduced state.
Key incidents of persecution
30 incidents since April 2020, from most recent to oldest
February 26, 2025: LSD cancels a planned protest against the government’s annual budget address, citing “immense pressure” while declining to elaborate. Instead, it published a detailed statement emphasizing the economic inequalities in Hong Kong, including a list of recommendations to the government to address them that, among other things, said political prisoners should be released and universal suffrage introduced. In what could be a sign of ever-increasing repression, LSD had been allowed to hold a small protest outside of government headquarters at the time of the budget address in 2024 and against the annual policy address in October 2024.
May 30, 2024: Five members of LSD are arrested for “disorderly conduct” outside the courthouse where, on the same day, the verdict in the trial of the HK47 for taking part in a pro-democracy primary election is scheduled to be announced. Two members of LSD are on trial, Leung Kwok-hung and Jimmy Sham, and among those arrested is LSD chair, Chan Po-ying, wife of Leung. They are held in custody for 34 hours and released on HK$2,000 each.
May 1, 2024: Four members of League of Social Democrats try to protest at government headquarters on Labor Day. Ten police officers were present. The LSD members were filmed and IDed by the police and their belongings were searched. This was the fifth straight year without a Labor Day march in Hong Kong. The members of LSD said coming out and handing in a petition to the government was the least they could do to mark the occasion. The members of LSD are used to this level of harassment and intimidation; indeed, they expect it and know how to handle it. But such persecution definitely deters most other people.
February 27, 2024: Three LSD members protest the impending passing of Article 23 national security legislation at government headquarters. They are surrounded by 50 plainclothes and uniformed police officers and warned they may be committing an offense if they disrupted public order or aroused public dissatisfaction with the government. The police inspected their belongings, including a banner that read, "The people are greater than the country, the people are above the regime. Without democracy and human rights, there can be no national security." Party leader Chan Po-ying said, “It is very difficult to express opinions in Hong Kong today.” Now, that is an understatement.
December 10, 2023: Three members of LSD are arrested when they attempt to go to the polling station where Chief Executive John Lee is expected to vote in new fake District Council elections from which all opposition candidates are barred. They say they want to protest the denial of the right to vote. They are charged by the Independent Commission Against Corruption with an election-related offense: “inciting another person not to vote or to cast an invalid vote through a public event during the election period." (A new law had been passed criminalizing inciting others not to vote or cast an invalid vote, even though it is not offense to refrain from voting or to cast an invalid vote.) The three were followed from when they individually left him and intercepted in Central. It also happens to be International Human Rights Day. Their banner reads, “Human rights are higher than political power, and the people are higher than the country. One person, one vote to elect the Chief Executive. Immediately implement double universal suffrage [for elections of the Chief Executive and Legislative Council].”
December 3, 2023: Police intercept members of LSD and about 20 friends as they are going for a hike near Stanley. LSD says it was told by police that they were suspected of being in violation of the national security law, but police later said they were stopped because they were approaching a trail that was closed for slope maintenance. They are searched and their belongings were inspected. The whole process takes about two hours.
June 6, 2023: Five members of LSD protest in front of HSBC against the bank closing its three accounts in March. Members of LSD have also been arrested for “soliciting funding without a license” for having QR codes on banners at street stalls that link to the donations page on their website, and PayPal has terminated LSD’s account. LSD describes being denied the right to raise funds as like “waiting to die.” In addition, the personal accounts of four LSD members were terminated by HSBC, Hang Seng Bank, and Bank of China. LSD has no full-time employees and no large-scale activities; its main expense is fighting the court cases the government has brought against its members. LSD also writes to HSBC urging the bank to reinstate its accounts. HSBC is already a “repeat offender” on Hong Kong Democracy Council’s “Corporate Bad Actors” list, freezing LSD’s accounts being only one of several ways it has been complicit in human rights abuses in Hong Kong.
June 4, 2023: LSD Chair Chan Po-ying is among about two dozen “preventively detained” by police in Causeway Bay on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre. They were detained for some time and then released later.
April 3, April 30 and May 28, 2023: 10 LSD members are served with a total of 26 summons for their roles in street stations on the aforementioned dates, charging them with fundraising without a license and displaying placards or posters with permission.
March 5, 2023: Four LSD members were threatened by national security police with arrest if they joined a scheduled women’s day march (which was eventually cancelled). If it had been held, it would have been the first protest allowed since the imposition of the national security law in 2020. Police initially issued a “notice of no objection” (essentially approving the protest) but then warned that “violent elements” threatened to intervene and the organizer would be held accountable. The organizer then cancelled the march.
February 6, 2023: LSD Vice-Chair Dickson Chau is charged with violating the COVID pandemic mask order for momentarily lifting a mask away from his face in order to shout outside HK47 trial to protest police treatment on the day the trial opened.
October 12, 2022: PayPal terminates account of LSD citing “excessive risks.” PayPal is added to Hong Kong Democracy Council’s “Corporate Bad Actors” list for this instance of “corporate collusion with repression.”
October 11, 2022: Tsang Kin-shing is charged with “littering” and fined HK$1,500 for his protest props at a small protest outside of Hong Kong government headquarters. Tsang said he had been protesting since 1989 and never before faced such a charge. Ironically, LSD had been protesting the gathering restrictions put in place by the government during the pandemic and used to prevent protests.
September 11, 2022: Two LSD members are fined HK$1,000 each and ordered to pay a HK$57.30 removal fee for “displaying placards or posters on government land without permission” in Causeway Bay. The posters in question were of imprisoned LSD leader Leung Kwok-hung and other political prisoners.
July 17, 2022: In a short statement, LSD said that “under tremendous pressure” it had been forced to delete online posts that were alleged to have violated the national security law and that it could not disclose more.
June 28, 2022: Police search the homes of six LSD members, take them to police stations, and warn them against protesting on July 1, the 25th anniversary of the handover. Chair Chan Po-ying says “everyone is being followed” and that in that period, a total of 10 LSD volunteers and friends had been visited by police. LSD member Avery Ng reports that people he suspects to be police are monitoring his home. LSD regrets that, after “assessing recent developments,” they have decided to take no action on July 1.
May 28, 2022: Five LSD members are fined HK$2,500 each, plus HK$157.40 for the cost of removing banners, for “displaying posters on government land without permission.” The banners in question bore the slogans, “Free Hong Kong,” "Release all political prisoners, remember our brothers and sisters in prison," and "Disobey; don’t accept your fate.”
May 8, 2022: Three LSD members attempt to protest the fake election of the Chief Executive. They are surrounded by police.
July 24 and August 14, 2021: Two LSD members fined HK$1,000 and HK$800 for “fundraising in a public place without a permit” at two street stations on the aforementioned date, in relation to QR codes displayed on banners.
June 26, 2021: Four LSD members are charged with “collecting money in public without a permit” at a street station outside Sha Tin MTR station.
January 1, 2021: Tsang Kin-shing is arrested for “flying a balloon in controlled airspace.” He eventually pleads guilty and is fined HK$2,500. The “controlled airspace” is the area around Hong Kong government headquarters. The balloon bore the words, “Free all political prisoners.” No one can remember a previous arrest or conviction on this charge.
August 31, 2020: Four people were issued with fines for “participating in a prohibited group gathering” at an LSD protest outside the Chinese government’s Liaison Office in Sheung Wan.
July 1, 2020: LSD member and former District Councillor Tsang Kin-shing is arrested on December 7, 2020 and charged with “inciting unlawful assembly” for a protest against the just-imposed national security law. He eventually pleads guilty and is sentenced to 10 months in prison.
May 1, 2020: 8 members of LSD and Labour Party are charged with “unlawful assembly” for participating in a small Labor Day protest outside of Hong Kong government headquarters. They are eventually convicted of “participating in a prohibited group gathering,” a charge over which hundreds were fined during the pandemic, as the government employed pandemic prevention measures to prohibit protests.
April 30, 2020: Five LSD members are fined HK$4,500 each for “participating in a prohibited group gathering” outside of police headquarters in Wan Chai. They are protesting police refusal to issue a permit for a Labor Day march on May 1.
April 18, 2020: Three LSD leaders are among 15 pro-democracy leaders arrested for organizing, inciting and participating in an “unlawful assembly” of 1.7 million protesters on August 17, 2019. The three are eventually convicted and sentenced to prison along with the others.
January 6, 2020: Two LSD leaders are among the 53 arrested in connection with the pro-democracy primary election, held in July 2020. Those two and 45 others are eventually charged with “conspiracy to subvert state power” on February 28. Both are remanded in custody, along with most of the others. One, Jimmy Sham, pleads guilty and is sentenced to four years and three months in prison. The other, Long Hair, pleads not guilty, is convicted, and sentenced to six years and nine months in prison. Jimmy’s projected to be released in May this year, Long Hair not until March 2029.
Full list of leaders of League of Social Democrats and their arrests, citations, trials, charges and prison sentences
as of February 24, 2025
Two leaders of LSD are currently in prison: Leung Kwok-hung and Jimmy Sham.
In all, 19 LSD members have been arrested 34 times, cited 24 times, preventively detained 1 time; prosecuted 45 times; and sentenced to prison 15 times for a total of 25 years and 1 month.
Eight LSD leaders are listed below. In addition, 11 rank-and-file members have been arrested two times and received citations 11 times.
Leung Kwok-hung (Long Hair): 7 arrests; 1 citation; 7 trials; 5 prison sentences of 81, 18, 18, 16 and 6 months for a total of 139 months (11 years and 9 months). Offenses: Organizing and participating in unlawful assembly, participating in unlawful assembly (three times), participating in a prohibited group gathering, conspiracy to subvert state power, contempt of Legco. Currently in prison.
Jimmy Sham: 1 arrest, 1 trial, 1 prison sentence of 51 months (4 years and 3 months). Offense: conspiracy to subvert state power. Currently in prison.
Figo Chan: 7 arrests, 6 trials, 5 prison sentences of 18, 16, 12, 10 and 3 months for a total of 59 months (4 years and 11 months). Offenses: Organizing and participating in an unlawful assembly, inciting unlawful assembly, participating in unlawful assembly (four times), failing to submit information to police in compliance with notification requirements.
Tsang Kin-shing: 4 arrests, 3 citations, 6 trials, 1 prison sentence of 10 months. Offenses: Unlawful assembly (two times); flying a balloon in controlled airspace; littering; displaying posters on government land without permission (two times); displaying posters in public without permission (two times), fundraising in a public place without a permit (three times); disorderly conduct.
Avery Ng: 4 arrests, 3 trials, 2 prison sentences of 14 and 12 months for a total of 26 months (2 years and 2 months). Offenses: Organizing and participating in an unlawful assembly, unlawful assembly, causing an annoyance, assault.
Raphael Wong Ho-ming: 4 arrests, 1 citation, 2 trials, 1 prison sentence of 14 months. Offenses: Organizing and participating in an unlawful assembly, participating in unlawful assembly (two times); disorderly conduct.
Chan Po-ying: 2 arrests, 1 preventive detention, 4 citations, 3 trials. Offenses: Fundraising in a public place without a permit (five times), participating in a prohibited group gathering, displaying posters on government land without permission (four times), displaying posters in public without permission; disorderly conduct.
Dickson Chau Ka-faat: 3 arrests, 2 trials. Offenses: Violating the mask order, displaying posters on government land without permission, displaying posters in public without permission, fundraising in a public place without a permit (two times); disorderly conduct.
Leung Kwok-hung / Long Hair’s statements from prison
At the mitigation hearing for the 45 of the 47 pro-democracy leaders convicted of “conspiracy to subvert state power” for taking part in the pro-democracy primary election in 2020, Long Hair made the following written submission on his own behalf. He was among the few who used his mitigation statement to express his principles.
Fight for democracy Brave difficulties
——Statement of Leung Kwok Hung of 35+ primary election case
Since the 1970s, I started participating in political movements and social struggles. It was out of a desire to change social injustice, strive for democracy and freedom, and achieve socialism. I have never given up. Along the way for nearly 50 years, black hair has turned into white. Long hair has turned into short. A free man has become remanded. I still act with this faith in mind. Whether I am an ordinary citizen or a Legislative Councillor, I have always done my part to fight for political democracy and social justice through various struggles inside and outside the system, from demonstrations, filibusters, judicial struggles, to quasi referendum by way of resignation in all five constituencies, etc.
When I took office as a member of the Legislative Council, I had repeatedly opposed the government’s Budget to protest against the government prioritising the rich over the poor. The interest of poor people was looked down upon, especially when the Budget was abundant, and the population kept on aging. What was rejected was allocation of funds in the Budget for establishment of “Universal Retirement Protection Scheme”. I have always deeply regretted that I failed to promote government reform and disappointed more than 1.6 million elderly people in Hong Kong!
I participated in the 35+ primary election plan as I understood from my personal experience in many years that it is essential to obtain a majority of seats in the Legislative Council with like-minded people. This is the only way to put sufficient pressure on the government to implement social policies beneficial to people’s livelihood. Among the “Five Demands”, the implementation of dual universal suffrage for the Chief Executive and the Legislative Council has become a goal that has been practised for many years. As stated in the “Resolution” published by the League of Social Democrats, the organisation to which I belong, in June 2020: “We should not expect that by winning half of the seats in the Legislative Council, (we) would have earth-shaking (changes); and we also should not feel discouraged and hopeless if we fail to get half of the seats.” No matter “35+” or “35-”, the most important thing is to continue to carry forward the spirit of endless struggle. To strive for the greatest mobilisation of Hong Kong people jointly for a change of injustice and unrighteous social status quo.
I now know the reasons why the Court found me guilty. I originally considered that the Legislative Councillors’ vetoing the Budget was a constitutional power already stipulated in the Basic Law. There are procedures in the Basic Law dealing with “constitutional crisis”, making the Chief Executive, government officials and Legislative Councillors altogether face the pressure of voters so as to take appropriate measures and interact with each other to resolve disputes. For the Chief Executive facing a constitutional crisis of stepping down, it is a prerequisite to obtain the mandate of the public through two Legislative Council elections. Both are indispensable! Since the vetoing of the Budget is authorised by the public, why couldn’t the Chief Executive follow the public opinion and implement reforms when the Legislative Council vetoes (it) for the first time? If the Chief Executive remains stubborn, it requires another mandate from the people before he faces the dilemma of stepping down. Therefore, the veto power would only have been exercised twice based on the public opinion. It would only have demonstrated the public opinion of the 2 million marchers [a reference to the 2019 protests] and complied with the wishes of the 600,000 voters in the Primary.
“Power to the people” is a belief that I have adhered to throughout my life, fundamental to my political career. It is also the solemn promise of the Chinese Constitution to the people! Although I am a prisoner today, I have no complaint. I firmly believe that the people are greater than the country. Human rights are higher than political power. I hope Hong Kong people never lose or forget, fight for democracy and uphold justice!
Leung Kwok Hung
15 July 2024
The following is a message that Long Hair quickly scribbled to his wife and LSD chair, Chan Po-ying, at the sentencing hearing for him and 44 others on November 19, 2024. He was given six years and nine months in prison. Chan Po-ying was shocked by the severity of the sentence and dreaded the long years ahead. Long Hair’s projected to be released in March 2029. It is a sign of Long Hair the public doesn’t often see, and one of the few statements released by HK47 defendants at the time of their sentencing.
Ying: ...I am extremely grateful for your visits and care over the past three years, and for your efforts to help me. I hope you understand that I really hope to be with you in a free world, to love you, and to travel together to places we both long to go. I often say, "I love you," and it would be great if we were not separated by iron bars! I hope you know that my current misfortune is due to political persecution…. I feel really sorry that I may not be able to love you freely as before. However, I have no regrets about my past words and deeds, and the resulting imprisonment. I have participated in political movements and social protests since the 1970s out of a desire to change social injustice and irrationality, to fight for democracy and to realize socialism, and there is nothing wrong with that. I write this in a hurry and cannot fully express my feelings at the moment. I hope you take care of yourself, and I also hope that those who are fighting together with me can be safe and continue to fight. Long Hair
