Claudia Mo (born Mo Man-ching on 18 January 1957), also known as Claudia Bowring, is a

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

journalist and politician, a member of the pan-democracy camp. She represented the

Kowloon West Kowloon West is the western part of Kowloon, covering the Yau Tsim Mong and Sham Shui Po District, with Kowloon City District occasionally included. History The boundary of Kowloon West is not strictly defined and hence varies. While traditio ...

geographical constituency In Hong Kong, geographical constituencies, as opposed to functional constituencies, are elected by all eligible voters according to geographically demarcated constituencies. There are currently 5 geographical constituencies in Hong Kong, returni ...

, until November 2020 when she resigned along other pro-democrats to protest against the disqualification of four of her colleagues by the government. Claudia Mo is one of 55 activists who were arrested in January 2021 under Hong Kong's new National Security Law. On 28 February, she, together with 46 other defendants, were charged with the offence of conspiracy to commit subversion. They appeared in West Kowloon Magistracy on 1 March. After a four-day bail hearing, the court denied her bail and remanded her and 31 other co-defendants in gaol custody for three months, pending further police investigation. A court judgement released in late May 2021 evinced that

WhatsApp WhatsApp (also called WhatsApp Messenger) is an internationally available freeware, cross-platform, centralized instant messaging (IM) and voice-over-IP (VoIP) service owned by American company Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook). It allows use ...

messages to international media had been considered in the judgement to deny Mo bail earlier in April under the stringent bail conditions of the national security law.

Personal life and education

Mo was born in Hong Kong, to where her parents had arrived as refugees from

Ningbo Ningbo (; Ningbonese: ''gnin² poq⁷'' , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ), formerly romanized as Ningpo, is a major sub-provincial city in northeast Zhejiang province, People's Republic of China. It comprises 6 urban districts, 2 sate ...

Zhejiang Zhejiang ( or , ; , Chinese postal romanization, also romanized as Chekiang) is an East China, eastern, coastal Provinces of China, province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable citie ...

, in 1950. She is married to journalist Philip Bowring, former editor of the ''

Far Eastern Economic Review The ''Far Eastern Economic Review'' (''FEER'') was an Asian business magazine published between 1946 and December 2009 in the English language. Based in Hong Kong, the news magazine published weekly until December 2004, when it converted to a m ...

'', and they have two sons. She attended St. Paul's Secondary School in Hong Kong. After graduating in 1975, she went to Toronto for pre-university qualifications and in 1979 she obtained a

Bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

in journalism with English studies from

Carleton University Carleton University is an English-language public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1942 as Carleton College, the institution originally operated as a private, non-denominational evening college to serve returning Wo ...

in Ottawa, Canada. After graduating and returning to Hong Kong in 1980 she worked at Agence France-Presse (AFP) translating French wires into Chinese. She was later promoted to chief Hong Kong correspondent for AFP, covering in this role the

Tiananmen Square massacre The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...

, an event which she describes as a "watershed ..that cemented my journalistic principles and political beliefs". She continued her work as a journalist at '' The Standard'' and

TVB Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB) is a television broadcasting company based in Hong Kong SAR. The Company operates five free-to-air terrestrial television channels in Hong Kong, with TVB Jade as its main Cantonese language service, and ...

. She also hosted a number of

RTHK Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) is the public broadcasting service in Hong Kong. GOW, the predecessor to RTHK, was established in 1928 as the first broadcasting service in Hong Kong. As a government department under the Commerce and Econo ...

TV and radio programmes, including "Media Watch" and "

City Forum City Forum () was a Hong Kong public forum held weekly on Sunday at the Bandstand of Victoria Park, Causeway Bay. The forum brought together politicians, academics and prominent public figures to discuss current issues, and also included a publ ...

". Mo wrote a book called ''We Want True Democracy'', published in 2015, and has also authored English language learning books.

Politics

Mo is a founding member of the

Civic Party The Civic Party (CP) is a pro-democracy liberal political party in Hong Kong. It is currently chaired by barrister Alan Leong. The party was formed in 2006 on the basis of the Basic Law Article 45 Concern Group, which was derived from the ...

in 2006. She first ran in the Kowloon West geographical constituency in the 2008 Legislative Council election but was unsuccessful. In the

2012 election This national electoral calendar for 2012 lists the national/ federal elections held in 2012 in all sovereign states and their dependent territories. By-elections are excluded, though national referendums are included. January *3–4 January: ...

, she won one of the constituency's five available seats. She ran with the slogan "Against Mainlandisation" which led to controversy within the party, as the Civic Party used the slogan "Against Communistisation." After her election, she was considered more pro-

localist Localism describes a range of political philosophies which prioritize the local. Generally, localism supports local production and consumption of goods, local control of government, and promotion of local history, local culture and local identi ...

within the party. She formed the " HK First" with

Neo Democrats The Neo Democrats was a pro-democracy, localist political group in Hong Kong composed mainly of former and disenchanted members of the Democratic Party New Territories East branch after the 2012 constitutional reform proposals. It had held ...

' Gary Fan to work on the localist agenda. Mo took part in the

2014 Hong Kong protests A series of sit-in street protests, often called the Umbrella Revolution and sometimes used interchangeably with Umbrella Movement, or Occupy Movement, occurred in Hong Kong from 26 September to 15 December 2014. The protests began after t ...

. The following year, she told a journalist that she did not consider the protests a failure, due to the attention they seemed to have drawn by many to the "plight of the Hong Kong people". On the same occasion, she spoke of a "parental mentality" of the

Chinese Central Government The State Council, constitutionally synonymous with the Central People's Government since 1954 (particularly in relation to local governments), is the chief administrative authority of the People's Republic of China. It is chaired by the p ...

towards Hong Kong. In the 2016 election, she was re-elected with the slogan of "self-determination". She later quit the Civic Party on 14 November 2016, citing differences with the party on localism, filibuster and other issues. She said she would continue serving the legislature as an "independent democrat" under the label "HK First". On 6 January 2021, Mo was among 53 members of the pro-democratic camp who were

arrested An arrest is the act of apprehending and taking a person into custody (legal protection or control), usually because the person has been suspected of or observed committing a crime. After being taken into custody, the person can be questi ...

under the national security law, specifically its provision regarding alleged subversion. The group stood accused of the organisation of and participation in unofficial primary elections held by the camp in July 2020. Mo was released on bail on 7 January. In late February 2021 after being charged with subversion, Mo was under custody again, and on 4 March, she was among only 15 of the 47 defendants in the case to be granted bail. However, she remained in custody pending an appeal by the Hong Kong government. She was denied bail in mid-April, with a judgement releasing in late May considering the argument of the prosecution that her exchanges on

with Western media were a "threat to national security". In August 2022, Mo admitted her guilt to a charge of "conspiracy to subvert state powers". She was one of 29 of 47 activists who pled guilty to the same charge: their sentencing was adjourned, pending trial of the 17 other co-defendants.

Insult from Junius Ho

During a 2019 Legislative Council meeting, Pro-Beijing lawmaker

Junius Ho Junius Ho Kwan-yiu (; born 4 June 1962) is a Hong Kong lawyer and politician who currently serves as a member in the Hong Kong Legislative Council. a prominent pro Beijing figure in Hong Kong’s political landscape, he formerly served as pre ...

made a remark directed toward Claudia Mo, stating that she is used to "eating foreign sausage." Mo, who is married to British journalist Philip Bowring, later told the council that the comment was "blatantly sexist, racist and it amounts to sexual harassment." Ho refused to apologise and was expelled from the meeting.

Television career

* '' News at 6:30'' –

, 1982–85 * ''Media Watch'' –

, 1991–2008 * ''

'' –

, 1993–95 * ''All-Primary Schools Inter-school Quiz'' –

, 1992–94 * ''We're All Parents'' –

Cable Television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with bro ...

References

External links