Jimmy Sham

Jimmy Sham Tsz-kit (Chinese: 岑子杰; born 29 June 1987) is a Hong Kong political and LGBT rights activist. He serves as convener of pro-democracy organisation Civil Human Rights Front (CHRF) and as a secretary for LGBT rights organisation Rainbow of Hong Kong. He is a long-time member of the League of Social Democrats. In 2019 he was elected to the Sha Tin District Council by residents of Lek Yuen constituency.

Life

Sham grew up in a single-parent family and completed secondary school in 2006. He worked as a legislative assistant for a period after graduating from secondary school. He later joined Rainbow Action, a member organisation of Civil Human Rights Front which advocates for LGBT rights. He started assisting with the work of CHRF in 2008, such as by hosting events and managing affairs with human and police rights. He occupied Connaught Road Central along with other protesters after the 1 July march in 2011, after which he was arrested for unlawful assembly. He participated in the 2014 Hong Kong protests and became CHRF's convener in 2015, for a period of one year.

After Sham left the post of convener, he studied at the Hong Kong Community College, graduating in October 2018 with a Higher Diploma in Social Work. He immediately rejoined CHRF, again as convener. This came at a difficult time for the organisation, as it had only HK$300,000 in funding with a monthly expenditure of HK$20,000. He is a long-time member of the League of Social Democrats and he joined its executive committee in 2018. He first joined the political party because it was the first in Hong Kong to include LGBT issues in its platform.

Sexuality

Sham is openly gay; he married his husband, a flight attendant, in New York in 2014. He is an active campaigner for LGBT rights in Hong Kong. As a secretary, he manages daily operations for Rainbow of Hong Kong, helps organise annual LGBT rallies and hosted an LGBT programme on Citizens' Radio. Sham was also the spokesperson for the 2018 Hong Kong Pride Parade, which drew 12,000 people, a record high.

2019 Hong Kong protests

As convener of Civil Human Rights Front, Sham helped organise the first and second protest marches against the 2019 Hong Kong extradition bill on 31 March and 28 April respectively, as well as helped organise the protest march against the bill on 9 June. The number of participants at this march exceeded Sham's expectations: although CHRF set a target of 300 thousand protesters, he estimated that more than a million people participated in the march. On 13 June, following the Hong Kong government's announcement of their intention to restart debating the bill, as well as the clashes at the Legislative Council (LegCo), Sham decided to organize another protest march on 16 June, which meant they had only four days to advertise the planned protest. He estimated that there were close to two million participants at 16 June protest. In an interview with Citizen News [zh], Sham noted that CHRF itself is unable to mobilise a large number of people to participate in protests, and that the high number of protesters in the 2019 protests was caused by public awareness and poor governance by the Hong Kong Government. He described CHRF's role in the protests as providing a platform for citizens to express their views. He said that CHRF estimates participants at protests by having volunteers count the number of participants from footbridges. Sham organised the 1 July march in 2019, demanding a full retraction of the amendment bill and for Chief Executive Carrie Lam to step down.

Harassment and physical attacks

Attack over sexual orientation

DAB politician and LegCo member Ann Chiang uploaded a video to Facebook on 7 July 2019, slamming Sham for being gay and alleging that he intentionally concealed his LGBT identity in order to gain status with the pan-democracy camp in Hong Kong. The video showed him in drag at an event, with captions "Deliberately concealing that, for power, money or fame?" and "Corrupting social morals, just disgusting." This is despite Sham being openly gay and his participation in LGBT rights organisations. He responded on social media, criticizing Chiang's attacks and encouraging those remaining in the closet not to feel ashamed for their identity. The video was instantly criticized by gay groups. The video was later removed by Facebook for violating its community standards. On 19 July, Sham and LegCo member Raymond Chan Chi-chuen protested in front of the Equal Opportunities Commission together with a number of LGBT rights organisations. The pair submitted a petition with more than 2,000 signatures and demanded that EOC chairman Ricky Chu Man-kin condemn Chiang's statements. Chiang later accused Sham of not being "ready" if he considered her comments to be an attack.

Sham was one of the coordinators of a demonstration on 8 December 2019. While Sham was to trying to communicate with the Hong Kong Police Force regarding the situation of the demonstration, his communication requests were rejected by the police and in turn the police called him "死基佬" (damned gay man).

Attacks during the 2019 Hong Kong protests

On 29 August, around 30 people gathered near Rainbow of Hong Kong's headquarters in Jordan, Hong Kong at 11 a.m. for a "Denounce Civil Human Rights Front" demonstration. Sham said the organisers wrongly listed CHRF's address as Rainbow of Hong Kong, and arrived at the venue 10 minutes prior to discuss with the protesters. Some protesters announced that they were there to oppose CHRF and scolded Sham using foul language. They also pushed apart and scolded reporters there, saying all reporters at the scene were "fake reporters". Some supporters of Sham were at the scene as well. During the chaos, several plainclothes law enforcement officers who attempted to separate the two groups of people were also scolded. A group of protesters continued to chant slogans after Sham left the premises, and stopped only after passersby shouted at them to leave. Sham later explained that Rainbow of Hong Kong was not a member organisation of CHRF, and he thought it was funny that protesters insisted on staying there. At 12:50 p.m. later that day, Sham and his friend Lo were assaulted by two masked men in a restaurant in Jordan using a softball bat and an iron tube. Sham's friend was hit three times in his arm resulting in swelling, and was sent to hospital; Sham was unharmed. Two men, aged 15 and 44, were later arrested over the attack.

On 16 October 2019, while on the way to a CHRF meeting, Sham was attacked on the street with a hammer by four to five people in Tai Kok Tsui, Kowloon. He was taken, bleeding heavily, to Kwong Wah Hospital.

Politics

Sham was elected to the Sha Tin District Council during the 2019 District Council elections. He represents the pro-democratic League of Social Democrats in Lek Yuen constituency. His campaign activities were temporarily disrupted by the aforementioned October 2019 attack, but Sham later returned to the streets to campaign on crutches. Sham was elected on 24 November 2019, unseating incumbent Michael Wong Yue-hon of the pro-Beijing Civil Force.