Chu Yiu-ming, born in 1944, is a Hong Kong Baptist minister who long served as senior minister of Chai Wan Baptist Church. After hardship in his early years in mainland China and Hong Kong, he studied theology in Taiwan and returned to Hong Kong to work in the church and in social service. He was ordained in 1978 and campaigned for the building of the Island Eastern Corridor and Eastern Hospital for the Chai Wan community, marking his entry into public life. Following the June Fourth crackdown of 1989 he was a core figure in Operation Yellowbird, which helped persecuted people escape, and, as a standing committee member of the Hong Kong Alliance, assisted dissidents; he said about a quarter of the more than four hundred activists who reached foreign countries via Hong Kong were handled by the operation. In 2003 he founded the Hong Kong Democracy Development Network and became its chairman, campaigning on democratic suffrage, and in 2010 he retired as senior minister of Chai Wan Baptist Church. On 27 March 2013 he joined the legal scholar Benny Tai and the CUHK sociologist Chan Kin-man to announce Occupy Central with Love and Peace, and the three were dubbed the Occupy Central trio by the media. He advocated non-violent civil disobedience to win genuine universal suffrage for the 2017 Chief Executive election, and in September that year he and more than forty supporters shaved their heads in protest at the framework set by the National People's Congress Standing Committee. When the Umbrella Movement broke out in 2014 he said it was not led by the trio but was pained to see protesters beaten; on 3 December he joined Tai and Chan in surrendering at the Central police station. Charged with eight others in March 2017, he was convicted on 9 April 2019 of conspiracy to commit a public nuisance and on 24 April sentenced to sixteen months' imprisonment, suspended for two years, avoiding jail because of his age and health. He was the oldest of the nine Occupy Central defendants, and his outspoken politics made him one of the few church leaders publicly criticised by pro-establishment pastors.
Chu Yiu-ming entered social activism as a minister; he was already pressing for the Island Eastern Corridor and Eastern Hospital in 1978, making him one of the few church leaders to move from district livelihood issues to city-wide political questions. His church and network played an organising role in the Occupy Central campaign. His two-year suspended sentence made him one of the few Occupy Central defendants to avoid prison, and his dual identity as pastor and activist drew attention to the role of Hong Kong churches in public affairs.
Achievements
- 1978 · Was ordained a minister and campaigned for the Island Eastern Corridor and Eastern Hospital
- 1989 · Took part in Operation Yellowbird, which helped dissidents escape
- 2013 · Co-founded Occupy Central with Love and Peace with Benny Tai and Chan Kin-man
- 2019 · Sentenced to 16 months' jail, suspended for two years, in the Occupy Central case