Ho recounts how bookseller got in touch on Thursday and the nail-biting build-up to his explosive press conference, three years after US whistle-blower also turned to him for help
TONY.CHEUNG@SCMP.COM
UPDATED : Saturday, 18 June, 2016, 11:00am
Albert Ho Chun-yan (left) and Lam Wing-kee on Thursday. Photo: AP
Thursday was just another day for Democratic Party lawmaker and solicitor Albert Ho Chun-yan, but one phone call changed all that.
Shortly after noon, Ho’s law firm received a call from Lam Wing-kee, telephoning from Kowloon Tong MTR Station.
Lam was on his way to hand over to mainland officers a computer hard disk containing information about customers of Causeway Bay Books, but the bookseller changed his mind at the 11th hour.
“Lam’s heart struggled for days before that moment … but he decided to speak up,” said the former chairman of the Democratic Party.
In 2013, Ho hosted a press conference for Edward Snowden, the former CIA employee who revealed explosive details about United States surveillance schemes.
Lam said on Thursday he made his own decision to go public after spending a lot of time thinking it through over two nights.
“I saw how 6,000 people took to the streets for our sake. So I thought … as a Hongkonger, if I still refuse to speak up, when among the five of us I had the smallest burden, I just thought, I need to come out and tell everyone what happened,” he said.
Lam found Ho’s office number through a phone directory, and went to his office in Central.
“At that time I was on the way to the Legislative Council, but I went to my Central office instead,” Ho said. “Lam and I talked for about an hour … We know each other because I used to go to Causeway Bay Books quite often.
Members of political group Demosisto protest on Friday outside the central government’s liaison office in support of Lam Wing-kee and to call for the release of detained bookseller Gui Minhai. Photo: Felix Wong
“I told Lam we should hold a press conference. He was worried there would be a lot of cameras, and said he was not good at public speaking. I told him it was not possible to only invite a few journalists.”
The lawmaker said Lam’s decision to tell his story was a courageous one and applauded him for not even seeking to hide his identity with a face mask as they took the MTR from Central to Ho’s Legco office in Admiralty.
“He said he didn’t need a mask as he wasn’t sick, and no one was stalking him,” Ho said. “So I took him to Legco, let him take a shower, have a bowl of noodles in the cafeteria and take a nap, and then there was the press conference on Thursday evening.”
After the media event, Lam, Ho and pan-democratic lawmakers Sin Chung-kai and James To Kun-sun had dinner together in Happy Valley, before To took Lam to one of the bookseller’s relatives to stay the night.
Since the Democratic Party supported the government’s controversial political reform package in 2010, it has been criticised by more radical players as being too conservative and even “betraying Hong Kong’s democracy”.
Asked if Lam’s press conference had cleared the party’s name or boosted its credentials, Ho said: “I think it showed we have a long history of refusing to bow to an authoritarian force … and offering help to those deprived of justice on the mainland.
“But the localists will not agree with us anyway. They will still think we don’t need to help mainland people.”
And questioned about a conspiracy theory doing the rounds that holds Lam may have decided to speak up because he was offered protection by mainland officials among several warring factions, Ho said: “Who could have made such an offer? Is that idea supposing there was a power struggle between Xi Jinping and Jiang Zemin, and Jiang’s men had offered to protect him? Such theorists should explain.”
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/1976954/edward-snowden-and-now-lam-wing-kee-democratic-party
