Hong Kong Occupy co-founder awarded German democracy prize
Reverend Chu Yiu-ming, honoured for his 30-year political campaign, says he hopes the recognition will inspire frustrated young activists to continue their struggle
Reverend Chu Yiu-ming, a co-founder of the Occupy Central movement, has become the first Chinese to be awarded the Pfarrer-Georg-Fritze Memorial Gift for his 30-year contribution to the democratic movement in Hong Kong.
Chu said he hoped the award would give a boost to the city’s young people, many of whom were left frustrated after the unprecedented sit-ins in 2014 failed to bear fruit.
“The accolade should be bestowed to all Hongkongers,” Chu told the Post on Thursday before he boarded a flight to Germany for the prize ceremony on Sunday.
“The award is a recognition of the movement and I hope society will be encouraged and understand that our efforts will not be wasted.”
The Pfarrer-George-Fritze Memorial Gift, founded in 1981, is delivered by the Evangelical Church District of Cologne, Germany, every two years to a person or an organisation that had made a special effort in standing up for victims of dictatorship and violence via peaceful means.
The panel chose Chu not only for his decades-long devotion to the city’s pro-democracy drive but also his efforts in helping dissidents in the wake of the Tiananmen Square bloody crackdown in 1989.
In his acceptance speech, Chu planned to raise his worries over the case of the missing Hong Kong booksellers – an incident he said reflected how the city’s freedoms were at stake.
The 72-year-old pastor said it was meaningless for the authorities to only criticise the growing number of young people who advocate Hong Kong independence.
“The people’s views are not being listened to right now. [The deadlock] will not be resolved until Beijing shows sincerity to address the problem,” he said.
While some new post-Occupy groups have taken a more radical if not violent approach in advocating the democracy drive following the sit-ins, Chu warned violence was not the solution.
“Successful social movements around the world have all adopted peaceful means,” he said. “Violence will never beat the force of authority. Only love can reconcile violence.”
Sociologist Dr Chan Kin-man – who co-founded Occupy Central with Chu and legal academic Benny Tai Yiu-ting – said he hoped the award would let Hongkongers know that even though the sit-ins failed to alter the Beijing-decreed political reform blueprint, the movement served a valuable purpose.
“The outcome of a movement is not simply judged by its impact on immediate policy change, but also whether its spirits managed to sustain … the [Occupy movement] has awakened a whole generation of people,” he said.