Joshua Wong, Jimmy Lai among five in HK nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

Five imprisoned Hong Kong pro-democracy leaders - including student activist Joshua Wong Chi-fung and media mogul Jimmy Lai Chee-ying - have been nominated for the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded in October.

The remaining three were journalist Gwyneth Ho Kwai-lam, barrister Chow Hang-tung, and former union leader Lee Cheuk-yan.

Under the rules set up by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, university professors are among those able to submit nominations for the prize.

In 2021, a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers nominated the entire Hong Kong pro-democracy movement. This year, there are 343 nominees, including 251 individuals and 92 organizations.

The five were nominated by 15 prominent academics from 10 different countries, with the nomination letter noting they were selected to represent the various communities - students, journalists, lawyers, politicians, labor rights activists and business leaders - that have been active in resisting the crackdown on freedom and civil society in Hong Kong.

“The nominees have chosen to be prisoners of conscience rather than to accept the crushing of human rights and the affront to human dignity that a new National Security Law has visited upon Hong Kong,” the professors wrote in their nomination.

China scholar and University of California Riverside professor Perry Link, who organized the nomination letter, said the five are worthy of the prize, citing that they persisted even though each of them had the means to flee or just stay silent.

In a letter accompanying the nomination, the professors compared the five activists to other prominent dissidents who have previously received the prize, such as Hitler critic Carl von Ossietzky, Polish politician Lech Walesa and Chinese human rights advocate Liu Xiaobo, who died of cancer while serving an 11-year term for subversion on the mainland.

"A Peace Prize to Hong Kong prisoners of conscience in 2022 would underscore the highest moral aspirations of humanity,” the letter states.

Wong, 25, was already serving a 13-month sentence for unlawful assembly. In January last year, he was rearrested and charged with subversion under the city’s national security law for organizing and planning an informal primary election in July 2020 ahead of the city's Legislative Council election.

Also arrested for the primaries include journalist Ho, 31, who came under attack when covering the July 21 Yuen Long mob attack in 2019. They were both awaiting the national security trial while in custody, which carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment if convicted.

Chow, the vice-chairwoman of Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, was earlier sentenced to 22 months in jail for her involvement in an annual vigil to commemorate those who died in China's 1989 Tiananmen crackdown.

Lee, 65, was also serving a 14-month sentence for his role in organizing the Tiananmen Square candlelight vigil.

Meanwhile, 74-year-old Lai, founder of the now defunct Apple Daily news tabloid was serving 20 months for unlawful assembly at the candlelight vigil. He also faces additional charges of colluding with foreign forces, which could bring him a much longer sentence.