IAPL
From her apartment in Toronto, famed Hong Kong lawyer Joy Luk says she wants to apologize to her family — one she doesn’t think she’ll ever visit again in her beloved hometown.
Luk, who is blind, rose to notoriety fighting for people with disabilities and helping pro-democracy protesters on the front lines of demonstrations in Hong Kong in 2019 with instant legal counsel. Images of Luk, a bullhorn hanging off her shoulder, grabbed attention around the world during those protests.
But on Dec. 20, after about 10 minutes of questioning by authorities, the 44-year-old took a morning flight out of the city to South Korea and on to Toronto, where she says she intends to stay. Luk has applied for refugee status, pointing to harassment by authorities in Hong Kong over her political activism and fears for her safety there.
Her decision has been kept a secret until today.
“I would like to say sorry to my family members there. I will put them in trouble,” Luk told the Star, “because of my active participation in this campaign for freedom in Hong Kong.”
Famed blind lawyer Joy Luk has fled Hong Kong and wants refugee status in Canada.
Fearing Beijing, Luk says she wants to continue her fight in a new home. https://t.co/fUhpEv59OH
— Toronto Star (@TorontoStar) January 31, 2022
Luk’s grandfather swam to freedom from mainland China to Hong Kong with his family, including her father who was not yet 10 years old at the time, in the 1950s. Her grandfather told her the Chinese Communist Party is not trustworthy, and she holds the family’s story close with her belief that freedom and democracy are a core value for humanity.
Monday, the day she reveals her intent to stay in Canada, is the first anniversary of her father’s death.
Now, with many of her friends in jail or having been arrested — including Canadian singer Denise Ho — for their involvement in the pro-democracy movement, Luk said she comes to Canada under a shadow of sadness.
In Hong Kong, Luk fought for better accessibility for people with disabilities before unrest in the city grew into massive protests against laws that opponents charged would be used to silence critics of Beijing and breach the autonomy guaranteed to the region by the Sino-British Joint Declaration, which laid out the stipulations of Hong Kong’s handover to mainland China in 1997.
But she said she has no intention of settling into a quiet life and is vowing not only to continue her fight for Hong Kong’s civil rights, but also to expose the Chinese Communist Party’s influence campaigns in Canada.
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