Agnes Chow, 27, was the female face of Hong Kong’s youth revolt in the 2010s. With her doll-like face, long swept bangs and still somewhat childish appearance, she threw herself into political activism in 15 years old. She was part of the gang of three inseparable people, with Joshua Wong, 27, now in prison, and Nathan Law, 30, in exile in London and who is the subject of an international arrest warrant issued by the Hong Kong government in July – accompanied by a reward of 1 million Hong Kong dollars (118,816 euros).
At the time when Agnes Chow went from a platform to a stepladder to harangue the crowds with her megaphone, some nicknamed her the “Goddess of Democracy”, by analogy with the sculpture which took pride of place in Tiananmen Square, in Beijing, during the Chinese student revolt in 1989. Furthermore, her love of Japanese culture and Japanese, which she learned on her own, allowed her to bring together an astonishing crowd of fans in Japan. If the government had not disqualified her candidacy, in 2018, Agnes Chow could have been Hong Kong’s youngest MP, at 21 years old.
Fifteen days before the opening of the trial of businessman and media magnate Jimmy Lai, 76, a major figure in the pro-democracy camp imprisoned since December 2020, Agnes Chow finally formalized her choice of painful exile. It was from Toronto, where she arrived in September to continue her studies, that she announced her decision on December 3, her birthday.
In a long two-part message posted on Facebook and Instagram, liked more than one hundred and sixty thousand times, she evokes the anguish in which she lived, on parole in Hong Kong. She talks about how she finally got the idea to apply for a master’s degree in Canada. It was only once there that she became aware of her aspiration to live free from fears and threats, and that she decided not to return to her native country. She said she had made her decision “taking into account the situation in Hong Kong, his personal safety, as well as his physical and mental health”.
A strange bargain
But his message also details the disturbing negotiations that took place to allow him to get his passport back. The Hong Kong police offered to return her papers, to allow her to study in Toronto, if she wrote a letter of repentance about her political activities and agreed to no longer see people associated with her past. policy. She complied, knowing she didn’t really have a choice.
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