Gwyneth Ho Kwai-lam (; born 24 August 1990) is a

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

social activist Activism (or Advocacy) consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good. Forms of activism range fr ...

and former

reporter A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

of the now defunct news outlet ''

Stand News ''Stand News'' ( zh, t=立場新聞) was a free non-profit online news website based in Hong Kong from 2014 to 2021. Founded in December 2014, it was the successor of ''House News''. It primarily focused on social and Politics of Hong Kong, po ...

'', who rose to prominence for her frontline reporting in the

2019–2020 Hong Kong protests The Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement, also known as the 2019 Hong Kong protests, or the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests, were a series of demonstrations from 15 March 2019 in response to the introduction by the Hong Kong government ...

. In June 2020, she announced her candidature in the

2020 Hong Kong pro-democracy primaries The 2020 Hong Kong pro-democracy primaries were held on 11 and 12 July 2020 for selecting the numbers of pro-democracy candidates for the subsequently postponed 2020 Legislative Council election to maximise the chance for the pro-democrats to ...

, in which she obtained a nomination ticket in the general election that was later postponed. For her participation, she was arrested in January 2021 along with over 50 other pro-democrats on national security charges and was remanded in custody. In December 2021, she received a sentence of six months in relation to her role in a banned protest during the 31st anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre in June 2020.

Education

Ho was educated at

Ho Fung College Ho Fung College () is an English-instructed co-education secondary school in Hong Kong. The school is sponsored bSik Sik Yuen Established in 1974, the school has gained popularity with its all-around student performance across academic discipli ...

and

Tsinghua University Tsinghua University (; abbr. THU) is a national public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education. The university is a member of the C9 League, Double First Class University Plan, Projec ...

. Ho studied at the

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other bein ...

, where she obtained a

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

Journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree. The word, a noun, applies to the occupation (pro ...

through the

Erasmus Mundus The European Union's Erasmus Mundus programme (named after Erasmus, the Renaissance scholar) aims to enhance quality in higher education through scholarship A scholarship is a form of financial aid awarded to students for further education. G ...

programme.

Journalist career

Ho joined

Radio Television Hong Kong Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) is the public broadcasting service in Hong Kong. GOW, the predecessor to RTHK, was established in 1928 as the first broadcasting service in Hong Kong. As a government department under the Commerce and Econom ...

(RTHK) as an intern reporter in 2011. She later worked for various media outlets, including BBC Chinese and ''The Reporter''. She was also employed as a reporter for ''

House News ''House News'' () was a Hong Kong news website, content aggregator, and blog founded by Simon Lau, Tony Tsoi, Leung Man-tao, Simon Lau and Greg Sung, which featured columnists and various news sources. The site offered news, blogs, and origin ...

'', the predecessor of ''

''. Ho gained recognition as a frontline reporter for ''Stand News'' in the

, acquiring the nickname "Stand News Sister" (立場姐姐). On 1 July 2019, Ho was one of the reporters present inside the

Legislative Council Complex The Legislative Council Complex (LegCo Complex) is the headquarters of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong. The complex is located at 1 Legislative Council Road, Central, Hong Kong. Construction of the LegCo Complex commenced in 2008 and wa ...

, where she reported on the

storming of the Legislative Council On 1 July 2019, anti-government activists in Hong Kong sieged, broke into, and subsequently occupied the Legislative Council Complex during the campaign to halt the enactment of the Fugitive Offenders amendment bill. Hundreds of protesters b ...

. She interviewed a young

pro-democracy Democratization, or democratisation, is the transition to a more democratic political regime, including substantive political changes moving in a democratic direction. It may be a hybrid regime in transition from an authoritarian regime to a ful ...

activist who expressed solidarity with other Hong Kong protesters, which garnered Ho a lot of attention for her reporting. On 21 July, Ho reported on the

2019 Yuen Long attack The 2019 Yuen Long attack, also known as the 721 incident, refers to a mob attack that occurred in Yuen Long, a town in the New Territories in Hong Kong, on the evening of 21 July 2019. It took place in the context of the 2019–2020 Hong Ko ...

, where swarms of suspected triad gangsters assaulted pro-democracy protesters at the Yuen Long MTR station. She had been live streaming the attack, which showed one of the violent assailants striking protesters over the barrier of a train's passenger gantry. The assailant suddenly ran towards Ho and started hitting her. Ho continued filming even after she was struck and knocked to the ground, capturing footage of

paramedic A paramedic is a registered healthcare professional who works autonomously across a range of health and care settings and may specialise in clinical practice, as well as in education, leadership, and research. Not all ambulance personnel are p ...

s attending to the injured. She was hospitalized after the attack, suffering from minor head, hand, and shoulder injuries. Ho's video footage went viral internationally, shocking the audience about the horrors of the night.

Legislative Council bid, arrest, and sentencing for 2020 vigil

On 18 June 2020, Ho announced her intention to run in the (subsequently postponed)

2020 Hong Kong legislative election The 2020 Hong Kong Legislative Council election was originally scheduled on 6 September 2020 until it was postponed by the government. On 31 July 2020, Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced that she was invoking the Emergency Regulations Ordinan ...

after quitting her journalism career. Her decision to quit journalism was partly motivated by the Yuen Long incident from 21 July 2019 in which she had been injured. In July 2020, Ho participated in the pro-democracy primaries within the New Territories East constituency. With 26,802 votes, Ho had the highest number of votes among the candidates, securing a nomination ticket in the general election. On 30 July 2020, it was announced that Ho had been disqualified, along with several other pro-democracy candidates, from running. On 6 January 2021, Ho was among 53 members of the pro-democratic camp who were

arrested An arrest is the act of apprehending and taking a person into custody (legal protection or control), usually because the person has been suspected of or observed committing a crime. After being taken into custody, the person can be questi ...

under the national security law, specifically its provision regarding alleged subversion. The group stood accused of the organisation of and participation in the primary elections held by the camp in July 2020. Ho was released on bail on 7 January, but was charged under the national security law in late February with bail denied by court since then. Friends of Ho have posted on her social media pages several long letters from jail in which she interweaves her political stance, pop culture and the future of the pro-democracy movement. On 9 December 2021, a Hong Kong court found Ho guilty of inciting and taking part in an unlawful assembly on occasion of the 31st anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre on 4 June 2020. More than a dozen politicians and activists had been charged over the assembly. Along with

Chow Hang-tung Tonyee Chow Hang-tung (; born 24 January 1985) is a Hong Kong activist, barrister and politician. During the crackdown by authorities on the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which began in June 2021 and ...

and

Jimmy Lai Lai Chee-ying ( zh, link=no, t=黎智英, born 8 December 1947), also known as Jimmy Lai, is a Hong Kong busniessman and a politician. He founded Giordano, an Asian clothing retailer, Next Digital (formerly Next Media), a Hong Kong-listed me ...

, Ho had contested her charges. During the trial, Ho said while she had been in Victoria Park on the evening of the candlelight vigil, she had not been taking part in it, but instead intending to show resistance to the regime; and that her holding flowers and a candle was to test the difference between Hong Kong and mainland China. District Court Judge Amanda Woodcock dismissed the arguments by Ho as "frankly non-sensical", as with the arguments of Chow and Lai. On 13 December, Ho was sentenced to six months in prison on the charges.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ho, Gwyneth 1990 births Living people Hong Kong democracy activists Hong Kong women activists Hong Kong localists Hong Kong journalists Tsinghua University alumni University of Amsterdam alumni Prisoners and detainees of Hong Kong Hong Kong political prisoners