Chu Yiu-ming ( zh, 朱耀明, born 10 January 1944) is a Hong Kong minister of

Chai Wan Chai Wan (; ), formerly known as Sai Wan (西灣), lies at the east end of the urban area of Hong Kong Island next to Shau Kei Wan. The area is administratively part of the Eastern District, and is a mosaic of industrial and residential ar ...

Baptist Church. He is one of the founders of the Occupy Central campaign for

universal suffrage Universal suffrage or universal franchise ensures the right to vote for as many people bound by a government's laws as possible, as supported by the " one person, one vote" principle. For many, the term universal suffrage assumes the exclusion ...

in the

2017 Hong Kong Chief Executive election The 2017 Hong Kong Chief Executive election was held on 26 March 2017 for the 5th term of the Chief Executive of Hong Kong (CE), the highest office of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). Former Chief Secretary for Administration ...

Biography

Early life

Chu Yiu-ming first lived in mainland China, then settled in Hong Kong. Chu Yiu-ming was baptized in Christianity in Hong Kong and worked in a local

Baptist church Baptists are a denomination within Protestant Christianity distinguished by baptizing only professing Christian believers ( believer's baptism) and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches generally subscribe to the doctrines of ...

in Hong Kong's poor Chai Wan district to help drug addicts and gang members. There Chu Yiu-ming was also a supporter of the creation of public hospitals as well as helped Chinese dissidents after the

1989 Tiananmen Square protests The Tiananmen Square protests, known within China as the June Fourth Incident, were student-led Demonstration (people), demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, lasting from 15 April to 4 June 1989. After weeks of unsucces ...

Operation Yellowbird

After

, Chu led a mission dubbed

Operation Yellowbird Operation Yellowbird ( zh, t=黃雀行動) or Operation Siskin was a British Hong Kong–based operation to help the Chinese dissidents who participated in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 to escape arrest by the Chinese government by f ...

to secretly move persecuted dissidents from mainland China to places overseas via Hong Kong.

Occupy Central

Chu and 8 other activists were convicted on 9 April 2019 for events towards the Occupy Central and

Umbrella Movement The Umbrella Movement () was a political movement that emerged during the 2014 Hong Kong protests. Its name arose from the use of umbrellas as a tool for nonviolent resistance, passive resistance to the Hong Kong Police Force's use of pepper ...

protests in 2014. Chu was given a suspended sentence while his other two allies

Benny Tai Benny Tai Yiu-ting (; born 12 July 1964) is a Hong Kong legal scholar, political figure, and democracy activist. He was an associate professor of law at the University of Hong Kong. From 2013, Tai launched and is known for his initiation of ...

and

Chan Kin-man Chan Kin-man (, born 9 March 1959) is a former associate professor of sociology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is one of the founders of the Occupy Central with Love and Peace campaign that strove for universal suffrage for the Hon ...

were immediately put in jail for 16 months. "We strive for democracy, because democracy strives for freedom, equality, and universal love. Political freedom is more than loyalty to the state. It professes human dignity. Every single person living in a community possesses unique potentials and powers, capable of contributing to society. Human right is a God-given gift, never to be arbitrarily taken away by any political regime", he said during the sentencing hearing.

Family

Chu Yiu-ming's son, Samuel Chu, an American political activist, was born in Hong Kong in 1978, and has lived since the 1990s in the United States of America. He is a founder and managing director of Hong Kong Democracy Council, located in Washington, D.C. On 2 August 2020,

China Central Television China Central Television (CCTV) is the State media, national television broadcaster of China, established in 1958. CCTV is operated by the National Radio and Television Administration which reports directly to the Publicity Department of th ...

said that Samuel Chu and five other Hongkongers were wanted by Hong Kong police for allegedly inciting secession and collusion with foreign governments to endanger Chinese security, the crimes cited in the new Chinese law, enacted on 30 June 2020 by the communist government of China.

References

1944 births Living people Hong Kong democracy activists Hong Kong Baptists Hong Kong Christian clergy {{HongKong-bio-stub