Demosisto was a pro-democratic political party established in Hong Kong in 2016 by Joshua Wong, Agnes Chow, and Nathan Law. The Hong Kong Federation of Students, led by Law, and Scholarism, led by Wong and Chow, were the two student activist groups which played an instrumental role in the Umbrella Movement in 2014. Demosisto was disbanded in June 2020.

The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress passed the Hong Kong National Security Law (NSL) in June 2020, establishing the four specific crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign organisations. Any public speech or other form of promotion of Hong Kong’s secession from China is also considered a crime.

Following the enactment of the NSL, Law left for London in July 2020, and was granted political asylum in April 2021.  The Hong Kong police had ordered his arrest for inciting secession and for collusion. Wong was sentenced to 13 months in gaol for “unlawful assembly” in 2020, and has been in prison ever since. Chow was sentenced to 10 months in gaol in 2020. After her release in 2021, she made no public appearances until December 2023, when she announced on social media that she was in Canada and would go into exile. The Hong Kong police declared that she would be wanted all her life wherever she lives.

Law will discuss political developments in Hong Kong and the implications for democracy worldwide. The focus will be on the 2019 anti-extradition protests, the impact of the 2020 National Security Law, and subsequent political developments. Does the NSL undermine Hong Kong’s judicial system and civil society?  Prof. Eva Pils will discuss the struggle for human rights in Hong Kong, focusing on the 2020 National Security Law and impending ‘Article 23’ legislation. Prof. Kamikubo will discuss how the Japanese government views the political developments unfolding in Hong Kong, and how the arrest of Chow, who had been appealing to the Japanese public in her fluent Japanese, was received in Japan.

About the contributors

Nathan Law

Nathan Law is a democracy activist from Hong Kong, now in exile in the United Kingdom. He was a leader in the Umbrella Movement protests, a political prisoner, and the youngest legislator in the history of Hong Kong, elected at the age of 23. He has been wanted by the Hong Kong authorities since 2020 under the National Security Law. He was recognised by TIME magazine as one of the People of the Year in 2020, and has been nominated several times for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Prof. Eva Pils

Eva Pils is Professor of Law at King’s College London, an affiliated scholar at the US-Asia Law Institute of New York University Law School, and an external member of the Centre for Human Rights Erlangen-Nürnberg. Her current research addresses autocratic conceptions and practices of governance, legal and political resistance, and forms of complicity with autocratic wrongs. At King’s, she teaches courses on human rights; law and society in China; and authoritarianism, populism and the law. Before joining King’s in 2014, Eva was an associate professor at The Chinese University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law.

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