Mounting Political Pressures Prompt Exodus of Hong Kong Cultural Workers
By Pamela Wong
Portraits of (from left to right) CHAN KAM-SHING, LEE CHUN-LEUNG, and CHOW POK-YIN. Images via Facebook.
Three of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC)’s ten elected members have vacated their positions. The representatives—artist Chan Kam-shing, songwriter Chow Pok-yin, and theater worker Lee Chun-leung—were chosen in public polls in 2019, and were supposed to serve from January 1, 2020, until the end of 2022, but have faced harassment and repeated verbal attacks from Chinese state-owned media since March. Arrests of pro-democracy creative professionals since the enforcement of the National Security Law on June 30, 2020, have also pushed some of the city’s artists to emigrate.
