About Carmen

Carmen Lau is a human rights advocate from Hong Kong, currently living in exile in the UK under a HK$1 million National Security Law bounty. She was elected as a district councillor during Hong Kong’s 2019 pro-democracy movement and later became Secretary-General of the Civic Party, then the city’s second-largest pro-democracy party before its forced dissolution. Amid escalating repression, she was forced to resign her elected office in 2021 and fled to the UK. That same year, she was wanted for “blank votes incitement,” and in December 2024, she was targeted again with an arrest warrant and the bounty on her head. Her family has since been interrogated by national security agents, while her neighbours in the UK have received anonymous letters encouraging bounty hunting.

From exile, Carmen has continued her fight for democracy and civil liberties. She founded Hong Kong March, a UK-wide cultural month to preserve Hong Kong identity abroad, and led the Vote for Hong Kong 2024 campaign to mobilise diaspora political influence. She also serves on the Leadership Council of the World Liberty Congress, working alongside global dissidents to strengthen the transnational pro-democracy movement.

Carmen is the Senior International Advocacy Associate at the Hong Kong Democracy Council, supporting HKDC’s global advocacy. She has testified before the UK Parliament on media freedom and the crackdown on Hong Kong’s civil society, spoken at the Copenhagen Democracy Summit, Oslo Freedom Forum, and Chatham House, and been featured in the Financial Times, Politico, BBC, CNN, The Guardian, Sky News, Channel 4, NBC News, France 2, among other outlets.