by Eric Lee and Peter Tatchell
On 21 August 2026 the High Court of Hong Kong convicted pro-democracy activists Lee Cheuk-yan and Chow Hang-tung of incitement to subversion under the draconian National Security Law (NSL). Lee has now been given a sentence of seven years; Chow received seven years and three months.
Lee has already spent five years in jail and will be appealing his sentence.
Lee is the founder and leader of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU), the largest independent trade union confederation in Hong Kong. It was forced to disband under the NSL. The HKCTU was the only free trade union centre operating in China, which does not tolerate independent, democratic trade unions.
Chow was a leader of the Hong Kong Alliance, which organised the annual memorial meetings to mark the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing.
The HKCTU and its affiliated unions were outlawed systematically over a period of years. Today there is almost nothing left of a trade union movement in Hong Kong.
Authoritarian regimes always understand that independent trade unions by their very existence pose a threat. This was true in Poland in the time of Solidarnosc; it is true today in Iran and Belarus. Independent trade unions free of state control are essential to a democracy and workers’ rights. And in the case of Hong Kong, they were seen as much more than workers self-organising to protect their wages and conditions.
Lee was, in addition to being workers’ leader, an outspoken advocate of human rights. He was instrumental in organising the annual memorials to mark the crushing of worker and student protesters in Tiananmen Square in June 1989. While such events have long been illegal in mainland China, they continued in Hong Kong.
As the Chinese Communist Party tightened its grip on Hong Kong, it was inevitable that those protests would be banned — and their leaders jailed.
Lee’s commitment to social justice and human rights led him to being elected a member of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council. He was also, for a time, the leader of Hong Kong’s Labour Party.
Lee’s wife, Elizabeth Tang, is also a leading figure in the trade union movement. She is the founder of the International Domestic Workers Federation.
Lee is a well-known figure in the international trade union movement, and was the keynote speaker at LabourStart’s Global Solidarity Conference in Toronto in 2016. Five years later, he was arrested.
As the Hong Kong Labour Rights Monitor put it shortly after Lee’s sentence was announced, Lee was “engaged in social and political activity on behalf of a trade union — advocating for democracy and freedom of expression, rights that are internationally recognised as fundamental to trade unionism itself. That these rights have now been openly trampled by the Chinese and Hong Kong authorities has implications far beyond Hong Kong itself, setting a deeply troubling precedent for authoritarian governments elsewhere seeking to suppress trade union organising.”
Lee has stood up fearlessly for the rights of working people and for democracy.
His only crime was his courage.
The UK has a special responsibility towards the people of Hong Kong. When the former British colony was handed back to China in 1997, it was understood that China would respect the principle of “one country, two systems” and this would last until at least 2047. The residents of Hong Kong understood this to mean that they could hold public demonstrations, form political parties, and even join and form independent, democratic trade unions.
The Chinese Communist Party has broken this agreement again and again. The sentencing of Lee Cheuk-yan is only the latest violation.
Britain — together with Europe — has leverage here. We are important trading partners with China. It is in China’s interest not to undermine the relationship with the West by jailing leaders who are advocates of non-violent protest.
Britain’s Labour government in particular, with its roots in the country’s trade union movement, should speak out loudly and clearly in support of the right of Hong Kong’s workers to freely choose to join and form trade unions. And the leaders of those unions must not be jailed for doing what union leaders do here and everywhere.
The International Trade Union Confederation, representing 191 million workers in 169 countries and territories, together with other global unions, is demanding Lee’s immediate release. Their campaign deserves the support of anyone who cares about human rights and worker’s freedom.
