25 Facts About Benny Tai

Benny Tai Yiu-ting is a Hong Kong legal scholar, political figure, and democracy activist.

Benny Tai was an associate professor of law at the University of Hong Kong.

From 2013, Tai launched and is known for his initiation of the Occupy Central with Love and Peace, as he considered Hong Kong to lack "true universal suffrage" and should participate in an Occupy movement to win universal suffrage in the 2017 Hong Kong Chief Executive election.

Benny Tai initiated "Project Storm" for the pro-democrats to win the majority in the 2019 District Council elections.

On 6 January 2021, Benny Tai was arrested along with 54 other pro-democracy campaigners, activists, social workers, and former legislators on suspicion of "subversion of state power" under the national security law for organising the 2020 pro-democracy primaries.

Benny Tai was educated at the Diocesan Boys' School and then graduated from the University of Hong Kong with a law degree and a Postgraduate Certificate in Laws, followed by a Master of Laws from the London School of Economics.

Benny Tai joined the Faculty of Law of the University of Hong Kong in 1990, became an assistant professor in 1991 and an associate professor in 2001.

Benny Tai was the Associate Dean of the law faculty from 2000 to 2008.

Benny Tai specialised in constitutional law, administrative law, law and governance, law and politics and law and religion.

Benny Tai has been active in promoting civic education in the community, having served on the Hong Kong Basic Law Consultative Committee as a student representative from 1988 to 1990 and a member of the Committee on the Promotion of Civil Education and the Bilingual Laws Advisory Committee from 1995 to 2003.

Benny Tai was a part-time member of the Hong Kong government's Central Policy Unit in 2007.

In July 2020, Benny Tai was fired by the University of Hong Kong, his long-time employer, citing the criminal conviction he incurred for his role in the 2014 pro-democracy protests, known as Occupy Central.

On 16 January 2013, Benny Tai wrote an article entitled "Civil Disobedience's Deadliest Weapon" on Hong Kong Economic Journal which sparked public debate.

In early 2016, Benny Tai mapped out an "Operation ThunderGo" for pan-democrats to grab half of the seats in the Legislative Council election to increase political leverage in future political reform in the response to the increasing fragmentation of the pan-democracy camp in the post-Occupy era.

Benny Tai suggested the anti-establishment forces to field no more than 23 lists if their goal was to win 23 seats in the geographical constituencies.

Benny Tai worked on a "smart voters" system involving 25,000 voters who would indicate their preferences on an interactive poll and would be informed of the popularity of candidates according to polls the day before the official vote and which would be updated through exit polling two and a half hours before polls closed.

Benny Tai was condemned by Pro-Beijing media in Hong Kong for several days in a row, followed by a rare statement of condemnation from the Hong Kong government.

The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office and the Liaison Office issued strongly worded comments condemning Benny Tai, stating that a "small number of people in Hong Kong have colluded with external separatist forces" to advocate the city's independence.

Benny Tai responded by saying his comments were "imaginations of the future", which in his opinion did not violate any criminal laws.

Benny Tai stated that by winning a majority of the some 400 District Council seats, pro-democrats could gain an additional 117 seats of the District Council subsectors on the 1,200-member Election Committee which elects the Chief Executive.

Benny Tai believed that by making it harder for Beijing to control the Chief Executive election, it would compel Beijing to restart the stalled political reform after its restrictive proposal was voted down in 2015.

On 6 January 2021, Benny Tai was among 55 members of the pro-democratic camp who were arrested under the national security law, specifically its provision regarding subversion.

Benny Tai is married with one daughter and two sons.

Benny Tai is a Christian who considers himself a "part-time theologian", and said he could write a thesis on the topic of Christianity and the Occupy protests.

Benny Tai stated that his political views were inspired by his Christian faith, adding that the movement was guided by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.