A few more practitioners of democracy and speech in Hong Kong have been released from prison, including Jimmy Sham Tsz-kit, the person quoted above.
“My emotions are complicated…. Of course, there is some happiness here [about my release], but there are still many who are suffering, and I feel like I can’t be too joyful,” Sham says (“Hong Kong 47: Jimmy Sham, three other opposition figures released from prison,” South China Morning Post, May 31, 2025).
“No matter what, we still have to live, so we should strive to live our lives well…. I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels like today is my first day of understanding the world again.”
Sham is one of 47 persons who were charged in a “national security” case. He served time for what the Chinese Communist Party calls conspiracy to commit subversion.
Sham and three others—Kinda Li Ka-tat, Roy Tam Hoi-pong and Henry Wong Pak-yu—were released early on Friday, a police source confirmed. They were the second batch of defendants in the high-profile case to complete their sentences.
Sham, 38, a former convenor of the now-defunct Civil Human Rights Front, was sentenced to four years and three months in prison in November 2024, with the time he spent in pre-trial detention also taken into account….
The “Hong Kong 47” case is the biggest prosecution yet under the national security law that was imposed on the city by Beijing in June 2020 to quell the months-long anti-government movement.
As a leader of the Civil Human Rights Front, Sham helped organize many antigovernment protests. He was also a district councilor until he resigned in 2020, the year that China imposed the first National Security Law on Hong Kong to wipe out what remained of its political independence and freedoms.
