The Hong Kong government has been quietly running a rehabilitation programme for around 7,000 people arrested during the 2019 protests who were never charged. To guide them back toward acceptable politics, it recruited one of Hong Kong’s biggest pop stars. That choice has now triggered an unexpected crisis: the mainland Chinese nationalists who are the regime’s most ardent supporters have declared the pick unacceptable.
The Security Bureau found itself defending the decision to its own side.
THE PROGRAMME
In April 2026, Secretary for Security Tang Ping-keung revealed the existence of the programme during an interview broadcast by Cable TV Hong Kong. More than 10,000 people were arrested during the 2019 protests against a proposed extradition bill. Around 3,000 were prosecuted. The remaining 7,000 have been in legal limbo — no charges filed, no resolution announced — for years.
The programme’s core activity is organized trips to mainland China, where participants witness the country’s development and, in Tang’s framing, come to “understand national security.” Government internships are also on offer. Some participants may qualify for civil service positions. Tang acknowledged that some worried they would be detained once they crossed the border. In those cases, authorities offered to personally escort them.
We are not setting any hard targets — they don’t have to go three or four times, or say specific things. When we think they have shown remorse, we give them a chance. The most important thing is their attitude.
— Tang Ping-keung, Secretary for Security, Cable TV Hong Kong, April 11, 2026
THE PENITENT
To put a face on the programme, the Bureau recruited Hins Cheung. Born in Guangzhou, he built his career in Hong Kong and is one of the most commercially successful Cantopop (Cantonese-language Hong Kong pop music) artists of his generation.
His political history made the choice complicated. In 2014, he joined a group of Hong Kong entertainers to record “Who Has Not Yet Spoken Up,” an open statement of solidarity with the Umbrella Movement (Hong Kong’s 2014 pro-democracy protests). The mainland Chinese market is the dominant revenue source for Hong Kong’s entertainment industry. Any public association with pro-democracy politics can close that market permanently. Cheung paid exactly that price. In 2017, nationalist voices on the mainland branded him a supporter of Hong Kong independence. He withdrew from “Singer,” a nationally televised talent competition with enormous commercial stakes, and deleted the recordings he had already made. A Chinese military newspaper took a swipe at him.
Nine years later, Cheung published an apology in the Wen Wei Po, a pro-Beijing Hong Kong newspaper. He described himself as “ignorant” and “rash” and said he regretted being “swept up in the social atmosphere” when he expressed solidarity with the protesters.
Some of my past remarks were inappropriate and caused people to question my feelings and attitude toward the country and Hong Kong, which I care deeply about. I sincerely apologize.
— Hins Cheung, Wen Wei Po interview, April 2026
He announced he would personally lead a group of 2019 arrestees — never charged — on an exchange trip to the mainland. Shortly after, Cheung unfollowed more than 1,000 accounts on Instagram. The list included fellow entertainers Sammi Cheng, Joey Yung, Terence Lam, Tyson Yoshi, Gillian Chung, and lyricist Wyman Wong. He also unfollowed his own fan club.
His followers noticed immediately. Comments flooded in: “Something feels very off here.” “Was he threatened?” “In the end, he just couldn’t hold on.”
BEIJING ISN’T SATISFIED
Cheung’s public repentance failed to win over mainland Chinese nationalists. Internet users attacked the Security Bureau for selecting a man they still consider ideologically compromised. His 2014 solidarity posts, his participation in the Umbrella Movement song, his past associations — nothing had been forgotten. The repentance, they argued, wasn’t enough.
The Bureau issued a defence. It stressed that the programme was open to “individuals, regardless of their background or sector,” provided they shared “positive life experiences” with the participants.
At an event organized as part of the programme, Cheung tried to soften his role. He told the audience he saw himself as a “companion, not a mentor” to the young people involved.
I hope my participation in the Security Bureau’s programme will help dispel the doubts society has about me.
— Hins Cheung, at a rehabilitation programme event
A PROGRAMME UNDER SCRUTINY
Human rights lawyers have condemned the arrangement.
Wu Shaoping, director of the Overseas Human Rights Lawyers Alliance — a group of Chinese legal professionals practicing in exile — told overseas Chinese-language media that the programme’s purpose is to make Hong Kong people internalize loyalty to the Party’s political authority. The threat of unresolved prosecution, he argued, functions as leverage.
Using a so-called “rehabilitation program” to achieve total thought control over Hong Kong people is, in substance, the CCP’s political re-education and brainwashing.
— Wu Shaoping, director, Overseas Human Rights Lawyers Alliance
Lai Jianping, a former Beijing-based lawyer, put it more directly. The programme substitutes political management for legal process.
They use politics to replace law, punishing these so-called suspects in their hearts, with the goal of making them submit to the CCP’s authoritarian rule.
— Lai Jianping, former Beijing-based lawyer
None of the 7,000 people targeted by the programme have been convicted of anything. The absence of any formal court proceeding means there is no public record, no legal standard applied, and no avenue for appeal.
Hins Cheung was not among those arrested in 2019. His involvement stems from his public statements — not a criminal file. That detail reveals the programme’s actual scope: the target isn’t lawbreaking. It’s dissent.
