Leung Kwok-hung

Leung Kwok-hung (born 27 March 1956), also known by his nickname "Long Hair" (長毛), is a Hong Kong politician and social activist.

He was a member of the Legislative Council, representing the New Territories East.

A Trotskyist in his youth, he was a founding member of the Revolutionary Marxist League.

Leung was born on 27 March 1956 in Hong Kong to a family from the Guangdong Province.

Born in Shau Kei Wan, he later moved into Chai Wan Estate.

He was raised in a single family after his father left home when Leung was six-years-old, while his mother was an amah in a British family to support the family and Leung had to live with relatives back in Shau Kei Wan who had seven children.

Leung was educated at the Clementi Secondary School.

Leung credits his political awakening to the Cultural Revolution and the 1967 Hong Kong riots, participating in the "Maoist student movement".

He and his mother were members of the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (HKFTU), the left-wing pro-communist labour union at the time.

After the falls of Lin Biao and the Gang of Four which crushed the Maoist idealism, Leung reflected his political belief, and delved himself into Trotskyism under the influence of the social activist icons at that time such as Ng Chung-yin.

In 1975, he co-founded the Revolutionary Marxist League, a Trotskyist vanguard party, in which he became active in political actions.

He was arrested multiple times, including in the protests of supporting the 1976 April Fifth Tiananmen Incident and Chinese democracy movement.

His first prosecution was in 1979 when he protested for the Yau Ma Tei boat people.

Later in the same year he was charged and jailed for a month for "unlawful assembly" for a protest at the Victoria Park.

After his release, he worked as a construction worker from 1981 to 1986.

In 1986, Leung worked for Kowloon Motor Bus as an overnight vehicle cleaner.

Around 1988, he formed the April Fifth Action after the Revolutionary Marxist League was disbanded.

The group is well known for its aggressive and civil disobedience-style actions to protest against the governments of China and Hong Kong during celebrations and visits of state leaders, often resulting in confrontations with the Hong Kong police.

They usually carry a coffin as their trademark protest prop.

Leung supported the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and has been member of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China.

He has been briefly jailed several times for offences such as shouting from Legislative Council of Hong Kong (LegCo) public viewing gallery, burning the national flag of the People's Republic of China and forcibly breaking into an opposition political event.

When he was called to come forward and take the oath, he raised his left fist, encircled with a black wristband, a memorial to those who died in the 1989 protests.

In 2000, he and Koo Sze-yiu were prosecuted for disrupting a LegCo meeting and were later jailed for 14 days, becoming the first dissents to be jailed after the handover of Hong Kong in 1997.

Before that he had been charged for 14 times, 11 of which were convicted.

Leung first contested in the Legislative Council election in 2000, where he ran in the New Territories East.

He received 18,235 votes, about six percent of the total vote share and was not elected.

On 1 July 2003, protests against the National Security (Legislative Provisions) Bill 2003 that had been proposed by the unpopular Tung Chee-hwa administration attracted more than 500,000 people marching in the streets.

The further antagonism towards the government helped further boost the popularity of pro-democracy activists including Leung Kwok-hung.

In the 2003 District Council election, Leung challenged the pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB) legislator Choy So-yuk's seat in the Kam Ping constituency which was seen as pro-Beijing traditional stronghold.

He called out the DAB as the "loyalist party" and received 1,149, only 284 short to defeat Choy.

He became a political icon with his long hair and Che Guevara T-shirt in the protests before he was elected to the Legislative Council in 2004.

Leung ran again in the Legislative Council election in 2004 in New Territories East and succeeded in winning a seat in LegCo with 60,925 votes at the expense of the moderate Andrew Wong, former Legislative Council President, He received over 200% increase in votes compared to the 18,235 votes in 2000.

His campaigns include universal suffrage, workers' rights and welfare for the less well off.

His political agenda include introduction of a liveable minimum wage, comprehensive social security, collective bargaining and taxing speculative business.

Although he expresses his fondness for Che Guevara and the ideals of revolutionary Marxism, Leung has not included a proletarian revolution agenda on his election platform and many of his ideas and proposals would be readily accepted by most mainstream social liberal and social democratic parties in other countries.

For the swearing-in ceremony of the Hong Kong Legislative Council on 6 October 2004, Leung's fellow members arrived in business attire.

He, in contrast, wore a T-shirt with Tiananmen Square on the front and Che Guevara on the back.

In 2006, he co-founded a social democratic party, the League of Social Democrats (LSD) of which he was the chairman from 2012 to 2016.

In 2017, he announced his candidacy for the 2017 Chief Executive election, through unofficial public petition, but withdrew after failing to receive enough signatures.

On 14 July 2017, Leung was disqualified by the court over his manner on oath of office at the inaugural meeting of the Legislative Council on 12 October 2016 as a result of the oath-taking controversy.