Eddie Chu

Social activism

Chu was born in Hong Kong in 1977 and was educated at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. After his graduation in 1999, he studied Persian language at the Tehran University in Iran and worked as an editor and reporter, covering news in several Persian-speaking countries after he returned to Hong Kong.

Chu became involved in cultural conservation and environmental issues and founded an activist group called Local Action. In 2006, he was one of the leaders to launch a campaign against the government's decision to demolish the Edinburgh Place Ferry Pier for the Star Ferry and the Queen's Pier to make way for the land reclamation project. He camped inside the pier with other protesters and filed a judicial review with another environmentalist Ho Loy against the decision of the then Secretary for Home Affairs of 22 May 2007 not to declare the Queen's Pier a monument under the Antiquities and Monuments Ordinance (Cap 53). The Court of First Instance dismissed the judicial review application on 10 August 2007.

In early 2009, he formed the Choi Yuen Tsuen Support Group to support the villagers who were forced to relocate due to the construction of the Guangzhou–Shenzhen–Hong Kong Express Rail Link (XRL). The movement grew into a massive protest in late 2009 and early 2010. After the proposal was passed by the Legislative Council in a controversial manner despite the protesters sieged the Legislative Council Building, Chu helped the villagers to rebuild a new eco-village.

In mid 2011, he took part in setting up the Land Justice League, a community movement organisation. He engaged in grassroots work in Pat Heung and San Tin. He opposed the government's proposal of the North East New Territories New Development Areas. He was also involved in a "Going Local" campaign to preserve farmland and develop a sustainable communal economy in the New Territories.

He ran in the 2011 District Council election in Pat Heung North, a constituency tightly controlled by the rural force. He ran again in 2015 District Council election in Pat Heung South under the banner of Urban-Rural Link, a campaign launched by the trio to promote green living and sustainable development. Despite his loss, Chu increased his votes from 283 to 1,482.

Legislative Councillor

In 2016, he and like-minded, Demosisto's Nathan Law and Democracy Groundwork's Lau Siu-lai, contested in the Legislative Council election, where he ran in the New Territories West. He received the highest votes in the geographical constituencies by winning 84,121 votes without any party backing, leading the first runner-up, New People's Party's Michael Tien by about 13,000 votes.

During the campaign, Chu took on the Heung Yee Kuk over the its land rights, drawing public attention to the long-time allegations of collusion between the government, business, landlords and triads behind the Wang Chau housing project, which made the government to scale down the housing project from 17,000 flats to only 4,000 due to the pressure from the powerful rural leader Tsang Shu-wo who owned the brownfield land in Wang Chau. After the election, Chu was placed under round-the-clock police protection when he reported receiving death threats against him and his family. The incident escalated into a political crisis in the following weeks as the government was questioned over the alleged collusion.