Agnes Chow, former deputy secretary-general of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy group Demosisto, who lives in exile in Canada, recently shared her experience in Hong Kong prison.
Agnes, 27, was a former spokesperson of the activist group Scholarism and a leader of the Hong Kong Demosisto Party together with Joshua Wong, and others. Known as the “Goddess of Scholarism,” she is fluent in Japanese. She has been to Japan for activities such as discussion forums on Hong Kong’s political situation and has a certain reputation in Japan.
In August 2020, under the Hong Kong National Security Act, Agnes was arrested in connection with the case of former Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai. In December 2020, she was sentenced to 10 months in jail for “inciting others to participate in unauthorized assemblies” and other crimes due to involvement in the anti-ELAB movement in 2019.
Since her release in June 2021, Agnes has been required to report to national security police regularly, with her passport confiscated and her travel restricted. In 2023, being allowed to study in Canada, Agnes announced that she had decided to go into exile and would not return to Hong Kong to report to the police.
She also revealed that after her release from prison, she had been asked by state security officers to visit mainland China and was forced to write a letter of thanks before she could go to Canada for further studies.
She shared that although the charges against her fellow inmates sounded horrible, they were not that vicious and that she got along well with her cellmates and was not bullied.
“In prison socialization, everyone is an ordinary person, and there are times when they are distressed and happy or unhappy,” she said.
Learning New Skills in Prison
As for prison life, the girl was assigned to fold government envelopes and briefcases in prison. Later, she was assigned to do laundry work and use a sewing machine.“Although it is a hard process, and no one wants to be in prison, it has given me one more skill, that is, using the sewing machine,” Agnes said.
Fiction Helps Forget Reality, Pain
Agnes revealed that her favorite thing to do in prison after work was to read novels, as fiction could help her forget the pain of the real world for a while. She had read more than 20 novels by Japanese author Keigo Higashino, as well as a complete set of “Harry Potter” and “The Hunger Games.”“Sometimes when coming back to the real world after reading a novel, seeing myself surrounded by four walls and sitting on a hard board bed, [I] really had a feeling of despondency and unhappiness,” she said.
She also frequently wrote letters to friends when in prison. While most of her letters were sent out smoothly, one letter written on June 4, the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, was unable to be received, and it is not known yet whether it was related to political factors.
National Security Staff Posed Biggest Shadow
The young political leader shared that the biggest shadow she felt in prison came from National Security personnel, who asked her to sign a Notice of Travel Document Detention every three months. She could not remember the number of times.When the National Security Police visited her at Tai Lam Correctional Institution, she felt very scared, worrying that she would be arrested and prosecuted again because of the National Security Law and would not be able to get out of jail.
Agnes ended the video by saying that her freedom is not easy to come by now, and she would continue to make movies to share her interesting life stories. However, due to security concerns, she may not shoot on the street.
This is the first time Agnes has made a movie since she was released from prison, with the last video on the channel being released in November 2020. In the comment section, many netizens left messages in Chinese, English, and Japanese in support of her continuing to make films, and some sponsored her through YouTube.
“It’s so great to see you recovering like this! Although, as others have said, there may be tears and unseen sorrows behind the video, as long as you are here, we are here too!” reads one comment in Mandarin.
“Some netizens called you ‘Hong Kong’s daughter,’ and you deserve it. You have given so much to Hong Kong and to the nation, going through a lot of hardship and being imprisoned,” reads another Cantonese comment.
“I am so happy for you that you have finally left the clutches of the devil and come to a free country, where you can study and do what you like to do.”
