A young American missionary priest traveled across the ocean and made Hong Kong his new home. John Clancey is a former priest and a lawyer in Hong Kong. He has experienced colonial life in the past and witnessed turbulent and high-pressure moments in recent years.
Following the tide of the times, I came to Hong Kong
In 1949, when the Chinese Communist Party usurped power in China, many churches retreated from the mainland to Hong Kong to provide welfare and relief in the poverty-stricken City. The church also sent many foreign priests to work in Hong Kong. Such was the case for young John Clancey when, in 1968, the American Catholic Church sent him as a missionary priest to Hong Kong, where he has resided for half a century.
Upon arrival in Hong Kong, his initial quest was to learn Cantonese, which took him two years. His first mission was to visit all the grassroots working families. Here, he established a nursery and kindergarten for children from low-income families and provided free medical treatment for those without the means to afford it.
During these early days in Hong Kong, John Clancey and many other church people helped the poor fight for a better life. While helping others, he admitted that he experienced great happiness and personal gain during this process. He stated: “I benefited myself as so many good things have affected my life.”
Three years later, John Clancey became a priest who served in the Catholic suburbs. He spent most of his time with Hong Kong Polytechnic University students, organizing various experience and training activities. For instance, he took students to garment factories to live with the workers. After their work experience, he conducted a ‘reflection and dialogue’ session, allowing students to think about what methods they could provide to help resolve the cycle of poverty.
In mid-1970, Father John’s model of “Experience-Dialogue-Reflection,” which he had started in Hong Kong, now spread across Asia. He became a Theology teacher at the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences. He traveled through the slums of Thailand, the tea plantations of Sri Lanka, and the rural areas of the Philippines. During these travels, he discussed societal structural problems with students and many sociologists, economists, and political scientists. During the second half of his life, this priest changed his life trajectory and chose to become a lawyer in Hong Kong.
John Clancey has been a missionary in Hong Kong since 1968 and has lived there ever since. He chose to become a lawyer in his 50s due to the words of Sri Lankan Basil Fernando, a human rights lawyer who has been in exile in Hong Kong since the late 1980s: “We need people like you to be lawyers!”
Clients travel thousands of miles to seek justice
The sovereignty of Hong Kong was handed over on July 1, 1997. That day, 56-year-old John Clancey completed his internship and officially became a practicing solicitor with Tse Wai & Partners in September.
As a practicing lawyer for over 20 years, John Clancey mainly handles public law cases such as medical disputes and judicial reviews. He combines his belief in human rights and advocacy with his legal work.
John gave himself the Chinese name “Guan Shangyi.” The surname Guan comes from guan gong, which means “justice.” He changed his name after reading an English version of Romance of the Three Kingdoms. At that time, he wanted to take a name related to justice. Guan Shangyi (John) said he likes Guan Yu: “He is just, brave, loyal, fights for justice, and protects people.” (Guan Yu lived during the Three Kingdoms and was a famed military general who served under the warlord Liu Bei.)
A client whom John once helped gave him a couplet, which he posted in his office as a memento. It reads: “People are entrusted with thousands of gold because of their loyalty and trustworthiness, and clients come from thousands of miles away for their public spiritedness.” The outside world has come to view John Clancey as genuinely living up to his stance and conviction on public justice, which he has witnessed through his lifetime of work helping others and pursuing justice.
John Clancey is the Secretary for International Affairs of the China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group and Chairman of the Asian Human Rights Commission. Over the past 20 years, he has participated in many significant cases.
In addition to Hong Kong, John Clancey has been concerned about the human rights situation in Asia and China since the 1980s. He was instrumental in promoting the Asian Human Rights Charter despite the many non-governmental organizations in Hong Kong.
Around 1980, he established the Asian Centre for the Progress of Peoples in Hong Kong, hoping to promote human rights development in Asian countries. The only country in Asia that John Clancey has not visited was Nepal.
Perhaps the most well-known incident about John Clancey was the mass arrest by the Hong Kong National Security Police in January 2021. Fifty-five people, including John, who participated in the Democratic Party primary election in the 2020 Legislative Council election, were arrested and charged with subverting State power. Eight of the 55 people, including John, were not prosecuted. Behind his arrest, there is a story that lasts half a century.
The first foreigner arrested under the National Security Law
John Clancey was arrested on January 6, 2021, by the national security police on suspicion of “subversion.” As police led him away, reporters asked Clancey what he wanted to say to the people of Hong Kong. He replied calmly: “Continue to work for democracy and human rights in Hong Kong.” These were the words of a 79-year-old man facing a dictator.
Since the implementation of the Hong Kong National Security Law, John Clancey was the first foreigner arrested in Hong Kong. Although he was later granted bail, his United States passport was confiscated. The incident caused strong International condemnation, with analysts saying this signaled rising pressure on human rights advocates. He was very surprised at the time, but stressed that he was not scared and believed that the future would depend on the evidence and everything would be handled according to the law.
He was released on bail in the early hours of his arrest and rushed back to work at the law firm the next day. He said: “Even with the National Security Law, we must continue to work for Hong Kong’s freedom and human rights. This has always been my position”. He believes that no matter how much pressure is experienced, someone will come forward to give more people hope.
On one occasion, as John Clancey took the subway home after getting off work that night, a lady thanked him in English: “Thank you for giving hope to the people of Hong Kong!” This small gesture touched John deeply.
It makes many people wonder: What kind of gain has prompted an American from the other side of the ocean to stay in Hong Kong for more than half a century and pay so much attention to Hong Kong’s freedom and human rights?
Hong Kong’s ‘Street Obstruction Case’ goes down in history
Many people believe that the most important case in John Clancey’s career as a lawyer is when he helped Falun Gong practitioners block the street (also known as the “Yang Meiyun case”). This is regarded as a famous and essential human rights case in which Hong Kong’s Basic Law protects its people’s “Freedom of Demonstration” — a primary requirement when studying the Basic Law in universities.
On March 14, 2002, 4 Swiss and 12 Hong Kong Falun Gong practitioners went on a hunger strike in front of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Western District to protest the Communist Party of China (CCP)’s suppression and killing of mainland Falun Gong practitioners. They were violently carried away by the police and sentenced to seven charges in August of the same year, which included obstruction of the street and assault on police officers. The petite Yang Meiyun was the first Falun Gong practitioner to be carried into the police car, and the case was labeled the “Yang Meiyun case.”
After three years of defense, the Chief Justice of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal, Mr. Andrew Li Kwok-nang, and five other Justices unanimously ruled on May 5, 2005, that the police arrests were illegal and all charges were overturned.
John Clancey and ex-Bar Association Chairman Paul Harris were both lawyers representing the street obstruction case. It took three years to get a fair trial. Clancey admired the Falun Gong practitioners’ persistence and took the case to court level after level until they were all finally acquitted.
After winning the “street obstruction case,” Szeto Wah, the then founding chairman of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, wrote a column in Apple Daily praising “Falun Gong for winning a big victory in safeguarding the freedom of demonstration for all Hong Kong citizens. They have truly implemented the word ‘forbearance’ in the doctrine of ‘Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance.’”
When asked whether he had ever been under great pressure for representing the Falun Gong case, John Clancey answered the question based on his own beliefs.
He said: “One of the things in the faith is that if you have all the love, there will be no fear. My motivation is also to love others, not for money or fame, but to love others; fear will not be present when you love others.”
Translated by Chua BC and edited by Maria
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