Where are the leaders of Hong Kong’s 2014 Umbrella Movement now?

September 28, 2024 marks the 10th anniversary of the start of Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement

Originally published on Global Voices

This report was published in Hong Kong Free Press on September 29, 2024. The following edited version is published as part of a content partnership agreement.

September 28, 2024, marks the 10th anniversary of the start of Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement, which saw protesters occupy major thoroughfares in key districts to call for the right to elect their own leader.

The 79-day civil disobedience campaign was launched in response to a ruling from Beijing that would allow Hongkongers to vote for their chief executive, but only from among candidates vetted by the central government.

The occupation of major roads was largely peaceful and leaders of the movement received relatively light sentences for the 2014 offences. Their political demands were not met. Huge protests which swept the city almost five years later, resulting in widespread damage and mass arrests and injuries, resulted in more than 10,000 arrests and saw hundreds sent to jail.

In 2020 a Beijing-imposed national security law (NSL) came into force, prescribing penalties for up to life imprisonment and effectively ending public displays of dissent in the city.

The Umbrella Movement began on September 28, 2014, when police fired tear gas at protesters who had gathered on Harcourt Road in Admiralty. It was the first time the chemical agent had been used on Hongkongers since the leftist riots in 1967. By the next day, protesters had occupied key sites in the city, where they would stay for weeks. The Umbrella Movement ended that December, after public transport companies affected by road closures obtained injunctions.

A number of protest leaders emerged during the civil disobedience campaign, some becoming household names in the city and beyond. Of the 12 activists charged in two high-profile trials in the years after the movement, two have spent the past few years in detention.

Others have left Hong Kong for places such as Taiwan and the US, and some appear to have withdrawn from politics entirely.

HKFP looks at their involvement in one of Hong Kong’s biggest pro-democracy movements, where they are today, and their thoughts on how the city has changed.

Joshua Wong

Joshua Wong, in secondary school at the time and a leader of student group Scholarism, led a class boycott in the lead-up to the protests. He was arrested on September 24, 2014, after he and others stormed Civic Square outside the government headquarters.

Conviction and sentence: Wong was found guilty of taking part in an unlawful assembly at Civic Square in July 2016 and handed an 80-hour community service order. He was found not guilty of inciting others to take part in an unlawful assembly. The government then challenged the sentence in the Court of Appeal, with a Department of Justice (DOJ) representative arguing for the immediate imprisonment of the activists. The DOJ won, and Wong was handed a six-month jail term in August 2017, but it was quashed in February 2018, when the Court of Final Appeal reinstated the original non-custodial sentences.

Where is he now? Wong has been detained since November 2020, when he was denied bail ahead of sentencing for a 2019 protest charge. In March 2021, he was charged with conspiring to commit subversion under the national security law imposed by Beijing in June 2020. He has since served prison terms for other protest-related offences, and is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to the subversion charge as part of the city’s largest national security case.

Nathan Law

A university student in 2014, Nathan Law was also a member of the Hong Kong Federation of Students. He was arrested over the storming of Civic Square.

Conviction and sentence: Law was found guilty of inciting others to take part in an unlawful assembly in 2016 over events at Civic Square and handed a 120-hour community service order. Following a government appeal, he was given an eight-month jail term, though that was quashed by the Court of Final Appeal.

Where is he now? Law announced in July 2020, days after Beijing imposed its national security law that he had moved to the UK. Last year, the city’s national security police issued arrest warrants for Law and 12 other overseas pro-democracy figures for alleged violations of the security legislation, placing bounties of HKD 1 million (USD 128,680) on each of their heads. He continues to be involved in activism, though in August the Hong Kong Democracy Council (HKDC) — a Washington DC-based advocacy group which he co-founded — cut ties with Law. Media outlets reported that the development was related to allegations of sexual harassment made against Law, which he has denied.

Alex Chow

Alex Chow was a University of Hong Kong student and secretary-general of the Hong Kong Federation of Students during the Umbrella Movement. Like Wong and Law, he was arrested over the Civic Square storming. He told HKFP he spent the early weeks of the protests sleeping outside the Legislative Council and meeting pro-democracy lawmakers, activists and other civil society groups.

Conviction and sentence: Chow was found guilty of taking part in an unlawful assembly and given a three-week jail term suspended for one year. Upon a government appeal, the Court of Appeal handed him a seven-month jail term, which was later overturned by the city’s top court, ruling that the original suspended term was sufficient.

Where is he now? The 34-year-old lives in the US, where he researches Hong Kong’s civil society for a doctorate degree in geography, and sits on the board of the Hong Kong Democracy Council.

Chow told HKFP earlier this month it was “devastating” that there had been no large-scale protests in Hong Kong since national security laws came into effect. In 2014, there remained room to debate the possibility of democratic reform under Hong Kong’s governing One Country, Two Systems framework. Now, Chow said, that room had disappeared.

Chow added that he had no plans to return to the city as he did not think it would be safe for him to do so.

Benny Tai

Benny Tai, then a law professor at the University of Hong Kong, headed the Occupy Central With Love and Peace campaign, which advocated non-violent civil disobedience. A well-known pro-democracy activist, he was one of the most recognisable faces of the 79-day movement.

Conviction and sentence: Tai was charged with conspiring to commit public nuisance, “incitement to commit public nuisance” and “incitement to incite public nuisance,” and tried alongside eight others — known as the Occupy Nine — over their roles in the Umbrella Movement. In April 2019, Tai was found guilty of the first two charges and sentenced to one year and four months in jail.

Where is he now? Tai was among 47 pro-democracy figures charged with conspiring to commit subversion in the city’s largest national security case. He has been detained since being taken into police custody on February 28, 2021, ahead of a marathon bail hearing in early March that year. He pleaded guilty to the charge, and was described by prosecutors as the “mastermind” of the conspiracy to subvert state power. Like all the 45 convicted in the case, Tai faces up to life imprisonment.

Chan Kin-man

Chan Kin-man, then a sociology professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, led the Occupy Central campaign with Tai and Chu Yiu-ming.

Conviction and sentence: Chan faced the same three charges as Tai, and was also convicted of the first two, receiving a 16-month jail term. The only one of the campaign’s three leaders to personally testify during the trial, Chan said in court that the Occupy trio had lost control of the movement after it escalated into a full-blown street occupation.

Where is he now? Chan moved to Taiwan in 2021 to take up a visiting professor position at the National Chengchi University in Taipei, where he taught courses on social movements and China. Last month, he said in a Facebook post that his stint had ended and that he was joining the sociology department of Academia Sinica, a research school in Taipei.

Chu Yiu-ming

Chu Yiu-ming was a pastor with a long history of working with underprivileged groups. A veteran activist, he helped pro-democracy supporters in China flee amid Beijing’s crackdown in 1989, as part of Operation Yellowbird.

Conviction and sentence: Chu faced the same three charges as Tai and Chan, but was found guilty only of conspiracy to commit public nuisance. The pastor, who was 75 at the time, was handed a 16-month jail term suspended for two years. The judge said he was impressed by Chu’s commitment to social justice, adding that he opted for leniency due to his age, health and contributions to society that spanned three decades.

Where is he now? The reverend left Hong Kong for Taiwan in December 2020, according to media reports. Chu and Chan contributed to a book of essays in August 2024 to mark 10 years since the movement. Earlier this month, the pair hosted a book signing in Taipei.

Raphael Wong

Activist Raphael Wong was a vice-chairperson of the pro-democracy party, the League of Social Democrats (LSD), during the Umbrella Movement. During his trial, he was said to have called on protesters to block roads near the government headquarters on the first day of the protests.

Conviction and sentence: Wong was found guilty of incitement to commit public nuisance and incitement to incite public nuisance. He was the only one of the Occupy Nine to have a criminal record, having been jailed for protest-related offences before, but the judge said he would not impose a heavier sentence on account of that. Wong was jailed for eight months.

Where is he now? Wong is still in Hong Kong and still a member of the LSD, continuing to take part in small-scale protests staged by the group. In May, he and other LSD activists were arrested outside the court building where the verdict in the 47 democrats case was being handed down. They were released without charge.

Wong told HKFP in September that he could never have imagined the political developments seen in Hong Kong in recent years — that the protests and unrest in 2019 would unfold the way they did, or that such demonstrations would essentially be made illegal. Looking back at the Umbrella Movement, Wong said it had been neither a success nor a failure, but “had its own significance.”

Shiu Ka-chun

Shiu Ka-chun was a social work lecturer at the Hong Kong Baptist University during the Umbrella Movement. According to the judgement in the Occupy Nine case, he was among the activists to call on protesters to occupy roads near the government headquarters on the first day of the Umbrella Movement.

Conviction and sentence: Shiu was found guilty of inciting others to commit public nuisance and “incitement to incite public nuisance.” He was jailed for eight months.

Where is he now? Shiu was elected as a lawmaker as a representative of the social welfare sector in 2016. He later founded a prisoners’ rights support group focused on helping those jailed over the protests in 2019, but which shut down in the wake of Beijing’s national security law. Shiu is still in Hong Kong and continues to support prisoners’ rights. He declined to comment on the Umbrella Movement.

Tommy Cheung Sau-yin

When the 2014 protests began, Tommy Cheung Sau-yin was a student at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he was president of the student union. He was also one of the leaders of the Hong Kong Federation of Students.

Conviction and sentence: Cheung was found guilty of “incitement to commit public nuisance” and “incitement to incite public nuisance,” and was jailed for eight months.

Where is he now? The former student activist was elected as a district councillor in Yuen Long in 2019 but resigned in October 2021. Last year, journalists reported that Cheung had written an article in a patriotic publication, which said he was affiliated with the Basic Law Student Centre, under the pro-Beijing Hong Kong Basic Law Foundation.

Cheung has also made headlines due to racking up debt and was declared bankrupt by the High Court in July.

Eason Chung

Eason Chung was a student at the Chinese University of Hong Kong during the Umbrella Movement. He was also a member of the Hong Kong Federation of Students.

Conviction and sentence: Chung was found guilty of “incitement to commit public nuisance” and “incitement to incite public nuisance.” He was jailed for eight months but sentence was suspended for two years, with the judge citing his motivation behind the offence, his age and “lack of experience in life.”

Where is he now? Chung moved to Taiwan in 2021, and to the UK in 2022, according to an essay he wrote for Taiwan media outlet The Reporter. Since March, the former student activist has been sharing his writing on social media under the handle “Yiuwa.is.writing,” where he explores topics such as travel and books.

Lee Wing-tat

A former Democratic Party lawmaker, Lee Wing-tat was a research officer during the Umbrella Movement.

Conviction and sentence: Lee was found guilty of “incitement to commit public nuisance” and jailed for eight months. The judge noted that Lee had served Hong Kong through “various public offices he held for over 30 years.”

Where is he now? Lee moved to the UK in 2021, according to Points Media, a UK-based news outlet covering Hong Kong. Having retired some years ago, he supports advocacy campaigns founded by Hongkongers in the UK, including one that called on people to vote for politicians who supported Hong Kong’s pro-democracy cause during the recent UK general election. In mid-September, Lee attended a birthday gathering of Hong Kong’s last British governor Chris Patten, which was organised by the NGO Hong Kong Watch.

Tanya Chan

Tanya Chan was a lawmaker with the Civic Party when the Umbrella Movement began. She is also a barrister.

Conviction and sentence: Chan was found guilty of “incitement to commit public nuisance” and “incitement to incite public nuisance.” Her sentencing came about a month after the other eight in the Occupy Nine trial because she had to undergo surgery to remove a brain tumour. The judge handed Chan an eight-month jail term, suspended for two years in light of her health condition.

Where is she now? Chan announced in September 2020 that she would withdraw from politics and quit the Civic Party. Media outlets reported that she moved to Taiwan in 2021 and has taken up cooking as a hobby. Last April, a restaurant in Taipei announced that she was doing a one-day shift as a guest chef.

Written by Hong Kong Free Press