 So we're gonna start up with a movie short movie one minute and so I'm very happy and I'm asking you for a big applause the title of the talk is surveillance state limited by acts of courage and here is our speaker it's Robert Thibault and I'm asking to applaud now thanks well thank you thank you to the computer chaos conference Congress for inviting me here again this year and thank you for everybody for showing up and for your support for mr. Snowden and the Snowden refugees what I'm going to do is this year I have a PowerPoint as in past years a PowerPoint presentation but with a lot more slides there's gonna be a fair amount of information I'm going to disclose today so if there'll be a certain part of it that's a bit technical but once we get through that then I'll go to the the big points on what's happened to my clients over the last year so I'll start with the presentation all right now as as you're all aware mr. Snowden was in Hong Kong 2013 and that's where he made his disclosures about the NSA egregious illegal and criminal conduct of basically using electronic mass surveillance to spy on on pretty much every country in the world these and he's currently a in exile in Russia as we all know and here are the Snowden refugees and I'll just introduce them and in case not everybody's familiar but on the left is Vanessa she's from the Philippines beside her to her left is a jeet from Sri Lanka a former soldier and to a jeet's left is Nadika from Sri Lanka and her partner Sopun so Nadika and Sopun have two children the little boy D naft was actually born in 2016 so he he has not had the chance to meet mr. Snowden yet and the little girl at the foot of Nadika at September and then beside her is Kiana Kiana's the daughter of Vanessa on the far left hand side as for myself since last year basically systematic efforts by the Hong Kong government from the immigration department to legal aid to the police there are parallel efforts basically to put pressure on me and I'll go into detail on exactly what happened but the Hong Kong police were basically arresting several witnesses that were testifying for the Snowden refugees and the police were putting it to coursing attempting to course these these witnesses and some of them are my clients to make a case criminal case against me and it was at the point that the Hong Kong police attended my former residence in Hong Kong looking for me seven police officers but I realized I needed to reach out and get help and it was time for me to leave Hong Kong so I received assistance from the Canadian government advice and assistance and also lawyers without borders Canada who whom I'm very grateful to I left on the 30th of November 2017 and I'm not able to enter into Hong Kong now what had happened was the immigration department from late 2016 to right up to the end of 2017 early 2018 had basically used different tactics to overwhelm me with work to make it administratively possible for me to do my job when that didn't work the immigration department had actually made applications to the duty lawyer service to the Hong Kong bar Association and to the torture claim appeal board basically seeking to have me removed from acting for the Snowden refugees and their appeals the legal aid department basically has stopped paying me my fees and those fees go back to 2012 and the duty lawyer service has paid only a small fraction of my fees and have delayed payment over years the torture claim appeal board fast track the Snowden refugee cases usually in Hong Kong when a an appeal is filed just bear with me a second when appeal is filed it usually takes about a year or more before an appeal is actually brought up to be heard but in the Snowden refugees case in 2017 it only took three weeks before the cases were called up only the Snowden refugee cases now what had happened in this was unknown to us unknown to me till August 2017 but the Hong Kong police they had been investigating the Sri Lankan police incursion into Hong Kong targeting my clients but in fact what they were doing is they were investigating the witnesses for the Snowden refugees and the Snowden refugees and myself and in August last year one of the key witnesses to the Sri Lankan police coming to Hong Kong looking for the Snowden refugees where he was arrested by the police he was denied a lawyer and actually I'm his lawyer and the Hong Kong police denied access to how let me have access to my client and as I mentioned earlier the police around my house actually searching for me now what what's happened in Hong Kong and what's happening in many democracies and around the world our governments are becoming increasingly authoritarian and governments seek to obtain information private data on civilians but at the same time these governments and government departments don't want to disclose anything so as a part of this presentation I'm going to be disclosing you know the identities of certain people as part of making Hong Kong a little more transparent but it's these two police officers break or low and miss young one wing these are the two officers that arbitrarily arrested and arbitrarily detained the witnesses to the Snowden refugee cases and these are the officers who made systematic attempts to coerce a number of witnesses to testify against me from what I understand they were asking my clients to say that I made up the story about the Sri Lankan police coming into Hong Kong and my clients told the truth that I never said any such things to them and in fact they explained they're the ones who were the witnesses and informed me now just to give you a wider context this is Mark Andres again he's the lead Canadian lawyer for the Montreal legal team which is handling the refugee claims by the snow and refugees in Ottawa Canada and in February 2018 Mr Sigan was in Hong Kong and as he was leaving Hong Kong at the airport there were seven police officers waiting for him as he boarded the aircraft and this was clearly an act of harassment and intimidation but the Hong Kong government the Hong Kong police force made it clear they wanted to send a message to Mr Sigan Mr Sigan went back to Hong Kong in July 2018 and he went directly from the airport to see one of the snow and refugee families and they went to a public area that was actually at the top of a building where you wouldn't expect anyone and it turns out two plainclothes police officers had followed and basically had Mr Sigan under surveillance and followed him right to the roof so Mr Sigan was in Hong Kong both times to meet with the Snowden refugees so you have a situation where the lawyers are being attacked they're being harassed by the Hong Kong authorities and you know I'm gonna be going through you know other departments that have been part of this you know systematic harassment on myself and the other lawyers but at the end of the day to attack lawyers who are simply doing their job acting without fear or favor is really an attack on the Snowden refugees and it sends a message that it's an attack on any vulnerable person that's entitled to legal representation what it is is it's an attack on the core of a rule of law now with immigration they had obstructed me by expediting the Snowden refugee cases at first instance they had asked the duty lawyer service to remove me from the cases they did the same thing with the torture claim appeal board and the Snowden refugees cases are at the appeal stage at right now and the immigration department made a formal complaint to the Hong Kong Bar Association saying that Mr. Thibault should not be representing these clients because he knows them too well and I was stunned by this complaint and what the Hong Kong Bar Association has done is they've grabbed the hold of that complaint with the full intention of proceeding against me in disciplinary proceedings ultimately the goal of immigration is to have me removed as the lawyer for the Snowden refugees or at a minimum prevent me from providing effective legal representation the legal aid department after the Snowden film came out in 2016 they completely they stopped the majority of my payment due to me for years and it's a significant amount and at this stage they're not paying me anything they also struck me off the legal aid list for doing refugee work in the courts so there's no way for me to ever do work in the courts for refugees unless I do it on a pro bono basis and completely unrelated to this I had done a significant amount of work in in criminal law in the high court and the legal aid department stopped instructing me for these cases for no reason at all and this despite under Hong Kong's constitution that anyone who's a criminal defendant or an appellant has a constitutional right to choose their lawyer that is their absolute right what this has done is it's put a normal enormous financial stress on myself it's left me significantly distressed in my ability to practice law and represent my clients now the duty lawyer service and I I have the administrator grace Wong and Kenneth Chan is the chief court liaison officer and they these basically are the two key people operating the duty lawyer service but over the last year or so they've only paid about 24 percent of my fees and they've systematically delayed payment and they've removed me from they removed me from two of the three snowden cases but what I would say is that I still represent the snowden refugees but privately through a solicitor who instructs me and the duty lawyer service systematically stripped most of my clients away from me during this past year and then in November 2016 just a little over a month ago the duty lawyer service basically you know expressly so they didn't trust me they didn't trust my professional competence and at that point despite the clients all trusting me the actual clients I was under illegal ethical obligation to resign from all my cases I had no choice the Hong Kong Bar Association now the snowden film was premiered on the night the September in 2016 in Toronto at the Toronto International Film Festival and on the 19th of January 2017 the Hong Kong Bar Association held its annual general meeting where they there's an election for a new bar chairman and vice chairman of the bar and at that annual general meeting bar council members raised my identity through my nationality and accused me of breaching provisions of the bar code for my assistance and my involvement with mr. Edward Snowden snowden refugees and I had been warned by a fellow barrister who very discreetly warned me that the bar association is looking for a way to cause a lot of trouble for you and and and at that point there had never been any complaints against me by any of my clients and there were no complaints about from the snowden refugees there are no complaints from anyone as far as I knew about the work I'd been doing for the snowden refugees and mr. Snowden so this is going to get a little bit technical if you can bear with me less than two months later I received a letter on the 8th of March and it was a formal complaint by the standing committee on discipline saying that basically accusing me of bringing the bar association into disrepute that I had put the snowden refugees lives in danger or I put them in a difficult position and the second thing was I did all of this to make money for myself which is ridiculous the basis of the complaint was an anonymous complaint the evidence for the complaint none it was completely an anonymous complaint there was no information provided where the anonymous complaint came from how many people there were how it was delivered so between April and May 2017 I wrote to the bar association and saying look I need to find out more about what this anonymous complaint is and I asked for disclosure how it was delivered if they knew who the complainant was or if there was more than one um internal communications what had concerned me was the racist and malicious conduct of the bar association members at the annual general meeting in January that they had chosen to identify me based on my nationality and they had done so behind my back in the 8th of March complaint the bar association listed two pages of questions which were wide in scope and ambiguous and they had mostly to do with mr snowden and I realized this was a fishing expedition and they had absolutely no evidence on on anything so I asked for disclosure by the 9th of June why the 9th of June of 2017 because for 12 years I had a spotless record I did nothing wrong at any time but the Hong Kong bar association decided last year in parallel with the anonymous snowden complaint to raise a five-year-old complaint where I was accused of being impolite to a prosecutor who failed to disclose evidence in the middle of a criminal trial this is this is a trivial complaint that should never be entertained by any bar disciplinary tribunal and the lawyer representing me was mr grossman at the time a queen's council and he communicated to the bar disciplinary tribunal that it was beyond his comprehension why five years after complainers made that it should be suddenly prosecuted now and he described the complaints as a disgrace and trivial rubbish those are his words but at any event the bar association was in a rush to have this case brought against me now one thing I should explain is with bar disciplinary tribunal proceedings in Hong Kong I have no insurance to protect me so whatever the legal costs are of the proceedings I have to bear them with duty lawyer legal aid not paying me holding my funds from me I didn't have enough funds to fight this fight something that was so trivial that I've been devised by my lawyer in London Jeffrey Robertson who's who's also Julian Assange's lawyer and lawyers in Canada and lawyers without borders Canada that no bar association would ever have brought this to disciplinary proceedings so I admitted the complaints for the simple reason that I couldn't afford the legal risk I'd be bankrupted if I fought it and without disclosure from the Hong Kong bar on the Snowden complaint and the racist remarks at the annual general meeting in January 2017 I didn't trust my instincts where I didn't trust that I'd be receiving a fair hearing in any event I was I was legal costs were awarded against me over 11,000 euro which I didn't have I still don't have and as for the anonymous complaint my request for disclosure it still hadn't been made which raised a lot of suspicions in my mind and then shortly after this parallel complaint was decided against me the bar association finally made some disclosure but minimal and then I discovered there were these two complaints completely anonymous unsigned and if you look at the bottom it says large group of exasperated barristers and this was a shock and if you look at the date it's the 9th of September 2016 the bar council the standing committee on discipline since the 9th of September 2016 had concealed and hidden this from me in March 8th 2017 when they brought the formal anonymous complaint against me the bar association all they had to do was attach that to the original complaint but they chose to conceal this to hide it it what kind of a bar association behaves in such a way now looking at the complaints from these two two large groups they say that I allowed myself to be quoted and then have photos taken of me and others and then they say my clients were put in danger not none of my clients have complained none of my clients have said you put me in danger or you put us in danger I never provided specific details on when the clients were located now number two these persons now will never be able to be resettled in the third country to remind everybody in Hong Kong there's a 0.2 percent acceptance rate of refugees my clients had a chance of winning the refugee cases that's 0.2 percent about 120 cases since 1992 have been accepted out of close to 40 000 refugee claims so the barristers who wrote this seem to be completely ignorant of the fact that refugees have pretty much a zero chance of ever succeeding and as such ever being resettled now they said this was disgraceful that I should be visiting Mr. Snowden in Moscow as Snowden is an international fugitive on every interval stop that's like telling a heart surgeon don't go into the operating room because there's going to be blood there that's like telling a medical doctor don't treat somebody who's been arrested by the police because they're a bad person that's telling a criminal lawyer which I am don't defend the innocent don't defend Mr. Snowden he's guilty already that's what the Hong Kong bar association is saying and they said this was all highly damaging to the bar I I ask Philip Dykes the chairman of the bar association I ask Robert Pang of the vice chairman of the bar association what damage has come to the Hong Kong bar association because I defended Mr. Snowden because I defended the Snowden refugees and one thing I'll say is the Hong Kong bar about Mr. Snowden and Snowden refugees have said nothing about Mr. Snowden's extraordinary acts of disclosure of criminal conduct they've said nothing ever and they've said nothing about the Snowden refugees they've remained silent so here's the problem two large groups of unknown barristers all deciding to remain anonymous this could be one barrister it could be hundreds it could be thousands there's a little bit less than 2,000 barristers in Hong Kong so every single barrister could have been part of these two groups complaining about me for doing my work for Mr. Snowden and the Snowden refugees and there's no way for me to identify which members of the bar association are not part of the large group of exasperated barristers and I stress again I wasn't aware of that until August 3rd if you look at the trivial complaint of me being accused of being rude to a prosecutor there were two barristers on the bar disciplinary tribunal how do I know they were not included in the large group of exasperated barristers so let me put it this way it's like the police arrest any one of you take you into a court criminal court and there's a judge sitting in the court and you say to the judge I'd like to have disclosure of the evidence against me and the police says no we're not going to show it to you the prosecution says we're not going to show it to you and the judge says we're not going to show it to you you're found guilty and then after being found guilty you find out who complained against you it was a large group of judges so this is what's exactly happened in Hong Kong in my case the people investigating me could be in the large group of barristers and the people who judged me are also barristers could have been in that group so what the Hong Kong Bar Association did is they brought themselves into disgrace they created a procedure that was inherently unfair and potentially biased if I had known about these complaints I would have never submitted myself to this jurisdiction and admitted to the facts I would have ignored it all so that judgment against me is illegal and the fine against me the cost order is void and the reason for that is the Hong Kong Bar Association's concealment of all of this Mr. Robertson Jeffrey Robertson also Los Angeles lawyers advised me and I had wrote to the bar association that in England Australia and Canada no bar tribunal would act on an anonymous complaint absolutely not because there's the risk it's motivated by malice and prejudice so you have to think about in January 2017 when at the annual general meeting the Hong Kong Bar council members pointed pointed me out by my nationality and made remarks against me that there was no evidence for Robertson advice that could have come from the CIA or another intelligence agency and as for disclosure Robertson as I know myself pointed out that to have a fair procedure the accused should has a right to know who the accuser is and has a right to see the evidence before him the bar also wanted information on clients Mr. Snowden and the Snowden refugees that are privileged and confidential and there is absolutely no way Mr. Snowden or the Snowden refugees would allow me to would waive privilege and allow me to disclose that nevertheless the bar association continues to proceed against me so there's three fatal problems with what the bar association did the anonymous complaint they should not and cannot proceed on it it came from a large group of barristers who for all I know are the same people who are in the bar in the standing committee on discipline the same people in the bar council and the same people in the bar disciplinary tribunal and that it's quite clear that the complaint because it's all about Mr. Snowden that it's politically motivated and the targeting of me based on my nationality indicates that it's also malicious and this is what Mr. Robertson's talking about lawyers without borders requested disclosure lawyers without borders Canada intervened and requested disclosure from the bar association bar association said no it's confidential and privileged how can an anonymous person have that kind of confidentiality and privilege so the bar association is trying to defend unknown people which makes no sense because no confidentiality or privilege exists so this is again continued concealment by the Hong Kong bar association now after a year you know why why why was all this happening but after a year the Hong Kong bar association brought five new complaints against me what they're doing here is they're trying to grab data trying to grab intelligence at the same time they don't want to disclose anything to me and they want to prosecute me in these quasi-criminal proceedings and this is the same thing that big government does they want to reach out and they want all the information from everybody but they don't want to be transparent and be accountable and as Ed Snowden said in Citizen 4 in the hands of a system whose reach is unlimited but whose safeguards are not no on a higher level on an overarching level when you have organizations that are court of rule of law that want information for example on Mr. Snowden detailed information but at the same time won't even disclose to me as the biostrofer Mr. Snowden what evidence they have against me to prosecute me all based on an anonymous complaint this is all about government overreaching its boundaries and at the same time not wanting to disclose not wanting to be transparent not wanting to be accountable I'd like to mention Robert Pang Robert Pang is now the spokesperson for the Hong Kong Bar Association on the matters that I've raised publicly about my treatment now I just highlight he was a bar council member and the chairman on the standing committee and discipline in 2016 then he continued as the vice chairman of the bar in 2017 and the year after 2018 at the same time he was also director of the duty lawyer service council now mr. Pang had in his hands the anonymous complaints from the very beginning he was privy to that information from the very beginning and he's now the spokesman for the Hong Kong Bar Association mr. Pang said recently oh we're not relying on the anonymous complaint anymore we were never relying on it but the original complaint said anonymous complaint I asked for disclosure including the bar minutes the bar council minutes from meetings stating that they're not proceeding on the anonymous complaints that has never been disclosed to me then mr. Pang said there's an identified complainant for two years I've asked for a disclosure of that no identification of a complainant and mr. Pang by saying that after two years saying there's an identified complainant that's completely unethical to have hidden that from me for two years but it doesn't matter because there is no identified complainant because mr. Pang was asked for the identified complainant as identity or her identity and it was never given given so what the bar association did is they brought in another five complaints against me for not replying to their demands for disclosure of my information on my clients and my cases so they're using their powers to punish me for not disclosing but at the same time I had written to the bar association saying please disclose to me all the evidence you have against me and then I'll take advice from mr. Robertson Queen's Council and then I'll reply to you they never disclosed instead after a year they brought fresh proceedings against me for not replying which is a lie I did reply I'd like to go back in history a little bit and this goes back to rule of law okay mouth of a lion in Venice in the 14th centuries what had happened was post boxes of a lion's face were put in and people could put in anonymous complaints criminal complaints and by the late 14th century there was the council of 10 that would decide who they would prosecute based on anonymous complaints almost two centuries later Venice government decided well we have to make sure there are three witnesses this was a reign of terror and as Mark Twain had had stated that you know there were the terrible lion's mouths these were the throats down which went the anonymous accusation thrust and secretly in the dead of night by the enemy that doomed many an innocent man this kind of behavior is not rule of law and I'm pointing out to you the way human beings have behaved in history there's also the existence of the star chambers which existed between the 15th and 18th century in England but today they're basically referred to as a legal administrative bodies which making strict or arbitrary rule in the secretive proceedings and John Cameron Queen's Council in Canada in describing the way the Hong Kong Bar Association is behaving says does this remind you the star chamber complainants and adjudicators protected from public accountability in a professional body engaged to protect the public stuff from Aurora has written extensively about all that's happened in Hong Kong with myself and my clients but basically how this is an attack by powerful government and the Bar Association really attacking seven vulnerable people who helped Mr. Snowden and John Cameron the Queen's Council had said that if an anonymous complaint came to him if he was a bar council chairman he'd throw it in the bin and that's exactly what should have been done in Hong Kong but was not Manfred Nowak the former UN Special Rapporteur and torture commented on the bar Hong Kong Bar Association's behavior and says that current actions against Tipo could only be explained by the fact that probably enormous pressure from outside is exercised Oliver Stone discussed the Hong Kong Bar Association and the government's treatment saying it was outrageous now going to the Snowden refugees at the very bottom Oliver Stones quoted in the National Post to Canada he talks about Snowden I think he helped humanity by pointing out a situation I think is intolerable still and then he talks about the people who helped them were human beings and in a way it's about human beings against governments so in summary you've seen the Hong Kong government abusing its powers against seven vulnerable people using disproportionate resources Canada continually delays knowing very well that it's not safe for the Snowden refugees in Hong Kong and they've done nothing to make a decision the Sri Lankan government having come into Hong and threatened my clients so why are these seven the only seven Snowden refugees on the entire planet why are they so special to these governments and why has Canada delayed and in my view this comes down to the Snowden refugees are something they represent something that every government is afraid of that they have the moral strength and conscience to do the right thing despite being deprived of everything in Hong Kong that they don't fear the government and that they're willing to protect whistleblowers and they represent a force of transparency and accountability and Stone is asking and he was quoted on the 29th of November 2018 why hasn't Canada taken in these people you know they'd be an asset just last over a week go Justin Trudeau talked about Canada signing up to the global compact on on migration and he says Canadians should be proud of this that we're showing leadership on one of the important issues around the world which is migrations and immigration and we're demonstrating that rigorous systems and an open policy actually leads to economic growth and economic advantages in stronger communities and being able to do this in a way that shows global leadership and of course does not impinge on our own sovereignty is something that Canadians should be proud of but Trudeau's done he does he's done nothing he's spoken he's not spoken about the Snowden refugees and no decision has been made on their cases and what we don't understand is through the legal team in Montreal an NGO is set up and we've raised funds to pay for everything for the Snowden refugees in coming to Canada and living in Canada so there's no cost to the taxpayer so why has Trudeau why has the Minister of Immigration and Med Hussain a former refugee himself who obtained refugee status in Canada why have they done nothing why does Canada continue to tolerate that the people who are asking for protection to be left at risk in fear and deprived of their dignity why has Canada not made a decision why did they continue to drag their feet so there's a standoff Hong Kong doesn't want to decide the cases Canada doesn't want to decide the cases I have no doubt if Canada rejects the cases Hong Kong will reject them so we have two jurisdictions two states dancing around the Snowden refugees and forgetting about them and this is disgraceful I'll come back to this later but this has been going on for more than two years now and the clients do need everybody's support and that means financial support but I'll talk about that later what I'd like to do is to have a short Q&A and then after the Q&A I'm going to proceed to another another issue so if anybody has any questions I'll take questions for about five minutes we have a signal from the internet can I please listen to the question okay we have a couple of questions here the first one is as as Hong Kong is increasingly under pressure from China where harassment of human right laureates is routine do you think China is involved in this case and if so is it based on pressure from the US or is it professional jealousy the last part I couldn't understand you talked about something about China something about the US yes do you think the China is involved in this case and if so is it based on pressure from the USA as Manfred Manfred Noah could point it out there's in his view it's likely there's a powerful outside force putting pressure on the Hong Kong bar on the Hong Kong government one thing I should mention is mainland China is the largest weapons and arms supplier to Sri Lanka and there's clearly an interest of the mainland Chinese not to have Sri Lanka criticized the second issue is Beijing and Hong Kong do not want ethnic minorities in their jurisdiction particularly not refugees okay China's ethnocentric in its politics and at the same time Hong Kong is not a multicultural society so the narrative of the Snowden refugees is not consistent with the narrative of the Hong Kong government the Hong Kong government is there's no such thing as refugees or asylum seekers they're all illegal migrants they've only come in here to take money away from us as for the United States I have no doubt that the United States and the other five eyes have an interest in what happens in Hong Kong and I have no doubt they're putting pressure on Canada okay so do you want to go on with the next question from the internet yes and also are you surprised about how the other party strikes you so hard during this case um what are you surprised about how you got a strike so hard during the case I was surprised that the Hong Kong government were the instigators the government that's supposed to provide international protection to refugees and asylum seekers but it was the very party that my clients have put their trust into is the party that's attacked them and their lawyer and this is disgraceful and this whole conduct was a surprise in the beginning but as things progressed I realized that Hong Kong is not a democracy it's an authoritarian system where the leaders are the majority of the leaders and the leadership of Hong Kong is appointed by Beijing so this is a this is a jurisdiction that has had democratic freedoms and constitutional rights steadily eroded over the last couple years so no it wasn't a surprise in the end because quite clearly the Hong Kong government has no interest in listening to its society they have no interest in listening to their wants needs and concerns okay thanks so if I see that right we have one question over there no not really okay oh there's another one yes please micro number two yes there's a connection to the huawei case the which case the huawei case the daughter of the boss of huawei main investor has been held in kanan are you or a very well difficult legal issue and I think they're playing a very really good game here um the it's huawei huawei is the telecom company yes I understand um the the treatment of the snowden refugees uh it's just part and parcel of you know the discrimination and racism that exists uh in Hong Kong and in mainland China against ethnic minorities um and I I don't think there's any direct link to the huawei case but that's a completely different subject which uh I really don't have time to address today okay I think that's also okay and I don't see any more questions oh there's another one hello so I think that's the last question yes last question yeah thanks uh micro number one thank you first very work um second is there were there any attempts by your colleague various two colleagues in Hong Kong to maybe also issue a statement of a even larger anonymous group isn't there sorry were there any attempts by your colleagues the Hong Kong Barista Association to also issue a statement or to make a counter complaint and then sign it you know larger anonymous group or in any have you have received any support from your colleagues no absolutely none not the only colleague that was sympathetic and supported me was the person who said your your nationality was raised at the annual general meeting in January 2017 please be careful uh they recognized I had done nothing wrong that was the only time okay thanks it's very hard to to hear that and the more I'm happy that you're here and I think you've got a little surprise for us right I I do I have somebody who's visiting right now and I'd like to bring them on the person on the screen okay so can we please get hello good evening this is Vanessa one of the snow revenues hi Vanessa how are you all right all right don't don't be nervous is there anything you want to tell the audience today about your situation in Hong Kong yes um thank you so much for supporting us while we do both time and um now I wonder why I'm not here in Hong Kong um Vanessa was was it the Hong Kong was it the Hong Kong bar that caused me to leave Hong Kong yeah the Hong Kong bar sorry now Mr Robert Tebow is not here in Hong Kong because the Hong Kong bar they bring uh anonymous um complaints against Mr Tebow and uh the Hong Kong bar is trying to defy um me and other snowden refugee uh Mr Tebow of our being lawyer and uh snowden refugee never complained about Mr Tebow to the Hong Kong bar and uh the Hong Kong bar um put me in the daughter at risk and it is a shameful to the Hong Kong bar what has done to Mr Tebow and uh Hong Kong bar uh they never help um never care there's not an refugee and um for uh Justin Trudeau um the prime minister of Canada right yeah yes the prime minister in Canada he talks about um helping refugee why it's a typical for seven snowden refugee in the world and um uh why is delaying why he's not making a decision now and um we are not safe in Hong Kong uh we cannot go back to our home country and um I hope they make the decisions now so stop delaying make the decisions now all right thank you Vanessa thank you if I if I just may step in very shortly um would you like you don't have to thank us we have to thank you for yeah does anyone does anyone have any questions for Vanessa yeah do we have questions you have the chance to ask directly don't be shy okay I don't see any questions all right you see they're all excited as well so everybody is nervous right there's no questions there's no questions there's one comment okay okay microphone one please ask a question yeah I'd like to know how's life for refugees in Hong Kong so do you feel there's any public support for refugees in Hong Kong and how is your quality of living in general um what I'm saying for my only interview I don't as a refugee or asylum seeker in Hong Kong I don't get any assistance from the Hong Kong government since 2016 when the Hong Kong government is questioning me about everything how many days I was put in stay in my house so I told her that I cannot answer her question she should contact my lawyer Mr Robert Tebow so after that I can be stopped my assistance so I made my daughter never get any assistance until now from the Hong Kong government even my daughter educations my rent so um it's so hard for me to survive but um I'm very thankful to my lawyer Mr Robert Tebow and the people who support me in Canada and all over the world who didn't make the donation and make us fundraising for us so me and my daughter can survive in some sudden refugee but um I'm also afraid because we are not safe here in Hong Kong so it's not easy for me and my daughter and all of some other sudden refugees in Hong Kong so we are not safe here and in general it's it's not easy here in Hong Kong it's it's very terrible life here it's very depressing and I need to be to be brave and I have to be trust to my lawyer Mr Robert Tebow and my lawyers in Canada so I hope soon I can me and my daughter and the others so that we can get in Canada for our safety and for our freedom thank you thanks to you thank you so much okay are there more questions I don't see oh there's one coming if I may go on yes may I ask you what would happen to you if you were denied asylum basically sorry what would happen to you if you were denied refugee status in Hong Kong or Canada or both in both places what would happen to you Vanessa if your cases were rejected I deny oh um if if my case is rejected in Hong Kong or in Canada um I cannot go back to Philippines I have very high profile right now so I should I me and my daughter will be called in Philippines so um my life is there's no point for me and my daughter to survive anywhere so I um maybe will be killed maybe my daughter there's no any future for her and um um or there's there's no life waiting for me and my daughter because the only thing is send me back to Philippines and me and my daughter will be killed will be died there's there's nothing for me and my daughter thank you okay so any other questions this is the last question there's a last question yes okay microphone please um hello I'm kind of reluctant to asking you this but I have to do if you could go back in time and decide again what would you do sorry can you say it again if you could if you could go back in time and decide again after knowing what you know now and having been through this would you do that again would you would you help Snowden again would you decide the same again or different I'm always say yes um I wanted to help him and um for me what he's doing is the right thing he's not gonna do anything wrong and um I'm not doing anything wrong I just help him and um for me he's he's helped so I help him and um Vanessa would you would you do it again yes I would help him again thanks I would do it again wow I have shivers running down my spine by so much humanity and yeah brave brave brave woman thank you so much okay thank you thank you Vanessa you have a good night thank you okay good night everyone good night and best wishes thank you okay that's it that's it and let me just tell you if you have some spare money donate it's a good cause thank you so much