Role: Former Chairperson, Hospital Authority Employee Alliance
Charges:
- Conspiracy to commit subversion
> Denied bail on 4 Mar 2021, granted bail on 28 Jul 2021, bail revoked on 8 Mar 2022
> pending trial. High Court, not scheduled.
> Expected hearing in 2023 the earliest.
Bio:
Winnie Yu is a registered nurse who volunteered as a first-aid responder during both the 2014 Umbrella Movement and the 2019 pro-democracy protests. She helped establish the Hospital Authority Employees Alliance (HAEA), which represents over 20,000 workers, and became the union’s first chairperson. In January 2020, after Hong Kong recorded several COVID-19 cases, HAEA organised a five-day strike from 3 to 7 February, with an estimated 6,000 healthcare workers participating. The strike’s demands included providing sufficient personal protective equipment (PPE) for Hospital Authority staff and closing the borders to prevent the virus from spreading into Hong Kong.
Yu won the health services sector primary election in the pro-democracy camp in 2020. On 6 January 2021, she was arrested for conspiracy to subvert state power due to her participation in the primary elections. After a four-day marathon hearing in early March, her bail request was denied. However, on 28 July, 2021, the High Court approved her appeal for bail, noting there was no evidence that she had “international connections.” Despite this, Yu was rearrested on March 7, 2022, for allegedly violating her bail conditions. The following day, a magistrate revoked her bail, seemingly due to a social media post in which she criticised the government’s mishandling of the Omicron COVID-19 outbreak, which had resulted in nearly 3,000 deaths and overwhelmed hospitals (as of early March that year).
Yu’s trial related to the pro-democracy primary elections did not begin until 6 February 2023, and the closing submissions were only completed on 4 December of that year. Mitigation hearings were postponed until June 25, 2024.
In her mitigation letter, Yu questioned why the implementation of universal suffrage is not considered a constitutional responsibility and maintained that voting to change the current system in the legislature was not wrong. She added, “Perhaps my only mistake was that I love Hong Kong too much.”
