Chiang Mai, 20 March 2023

Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) along with the undersigned organisations are calling on Hong Kong authorities to drop all arbitrary charges against Elizabeth Tang. 

Elizabeth Tang Yin-ngor, General Secretary of International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF) and former Chief Executive of Hong Kong Confederation of a Trade Unions (HKCTU), has been leading the national labour movement for decades and her activism later involved in international labour movement in mobilising domestic workers’ collective power across the world.  

We demand the Hong Kong Government to: 

  • Immediately and unconditionally release Elizabeth Tang, withdraw all arbitrary charges against her, and provide her with the full remedy to recover from wrongful charges and negative consequences that might have arisen as a result of her arrest and detention. 
  • Stop criminalising civil society, trade unions, women human rights defenders and peoples’ democracy movement when they exercise their legal right to freedom of association, including that of organising union activities and participation in global union federations, and actively protect the fundamental right to organise as guaranteed in international human rights laws and standards.  
  • Stop using the National Security Law and immediately cease all arbitrary restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression and association under the pretext of “national security”.
  • Stop using  defamation campaigns  as a tool to target and threaten human rights defenders and hold relevant government authorities who have instigated such crimes to account.  

Elizabeth has been a prominent leader in the international labour movement and was arrested in Hong Kong by the national security police. The police arrested her on March 9  for alleged “foreign collusion” and “endangering national security” once she returned to the country after visiting her husband, the imprisoned union leader Lee Cheuk-yan.  During her detention, Tang’s mobile communication device was confiscated by the officials. The police are not only detaining and investigating her but they are also charging her with a “financial punishment”- a cash bail of HK$200,000 (USD 25, 498) and requiring her to handover her travel documents as part of the bail conditions.

In June 2020, Hong Kong Government codified human rights defenders with penalties for allegation on secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces in response to pro-democracy mass protest.  Just a month after the law was newly launched, the authorities arrested more than 230 human rights defenders and activists under the law, which goes against the Hong Kong government’s international obligations to recognise the right to freedom of association under the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights and to recognise and protect human rights defenders, including women, under the 1998 Declaration on Human Rights Defender. 

Instead of recognising the essential work of human rights defenders to advocate the economic, social, cultural, civil, and political rights of their citizens, the authorities continue to target activists under the national security law. Since then, democracy, including freedom of assembly and freedom of expression in Hong Kong has been consistently cracked down. We demand justice for the human rights defenders who have been detained. 

We are deeply concerned about the rising authoritarian regime in Hong Kong and alarmed that women are being subjected to these unfounded charges that threaten their safety for the work they do to defend human rights, justice, dignity, freedoms, and democracy. We condemn the grounds for Elizabeth’s arbitrary detention and cash bailout.