Death of Chan Yin-lam

The death of Chan Yin-lam, a 15-year-old student, occurred on or shortly after 19 September 2019. Her naked corpse was found floating in the sea near Yau Tong, Hong Kong on 22 September 2019. Following a preliminary autopsy, police asserted that no foul play was suspected, and that Chan had committed suicide.[1] Her death was the subject of a conspiracy theory that alleged that the government murdered her for participating in the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests.[2]

Chan Yin-lam
CCTV footage released by the Hong Kong Design Institute of Chan the day of her death, 19 September 2019
Born2004
Hong Kong
Died19 September 2019(2019-09-19) (aged 14–15)
Hong Kong
Body discoveredYau Tong, Hong Kong
NationalityHongkonger
Alma materHong Kong Design Institute
OccupationStudent
Height1.53m (5 ft 0 in)
Movement2019–20 Hong Kong protests

Background

Chan Yin-lam was 15 years old, and her parents were separated. With a "complicated" family background, she had a history of running away from home.[3] Prior to her disappearance, she had been staying at a girls' home.[4]

She attended the Pok Oi Hospital Tang Pui King Memorial College, Hong Kong, and had, just a few days prior to her disappearance, started a course at the Youth College attached to the Vocational Training Council (VTC). She also worked a part-time job in the restaurant trade.[3] Media reports indicate that Chan had won awards in inter-school swimming competitions.[5] Chan had received regular diving training and was once a member of the diving team.[6] According to her friends, she had attended protests, while police confirmed that Chan had not been arrested during the 2019 protests.[5]

Disappearance and death

On 19 September at 14:15, Chan left a group of friends at Mei Foo and sent a message to some friends stating she was going back home. It was her last message before her disappearance.[3] Friends put out a missing person's brief after she failed to reappear;[6] her family called the police on 21 September.[7] According to surveillance footage from Youth College she attended, she left the campus barefoot and walked towards the waterfront near Tseung Kwan O on 19 September. She was reported missing two days later.[5]

MTR confirmed that station cleaners had found a mobile phone and some stationery belonging to Chan on the ground near an exit of Tiu Keng Leng Station, while the station staff contacted Chan's family members as confirmed by the call log of the mobile phone. Her family member picked up the lost property two days later.[8]

At 11 am on 22 September, a man who was fishing saw a floating object with a human form 100m off the coast from Devil's Peak. Police boats were dispatched, and it was found to be the naked corpse of a human female. Police initially reported that the victim was a female suspected of being between 25 and 30 years of age, 1.5m in height, medium build, with long blond hair. On 9 October, in responding to media inquiries, police confirmed that the naked corpse belonged to the 15-year-old Chan.[9] According to a preliminary autopsy, there were no lacerations or contusions on her body, and no sign of sexual assault. Although her death was later considered "not suspicious" by the police, the police originally requested a court warrant on 27 September on the grounds that the case was a murder, but changed the categorization to "dead body found" several days later.[10] Her body was cremated on 10 October, the day after police had confirmed the corpse as Chan's.[11][1]

Conspiracy theories and reactions
A Lennon Wall at Hong Kong Design Institute, the school Chan attended before her death.

Following her death, conspiracy theories emerged on social media that alleged that the police and government officials murdered her for participating in the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests and then covered-up her death. The Hong Kong police and government have denied these allegations.[1][2]

HKDI footage

Fueled by these conspiracy theories, students from Youth College and Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI) Tiu King Leng campus where she was a student gathered to demand the release of the CCTV footage taken on the evening of 19 September, where Chan was last seen before her death.[2] On 15 October, after a sit-in, campus management agreed to accede to the demands and released some relevant footage. Dissatisfied with partial footage, disgruntled students demanded complete and unedited footage, giving a 30-minute deadline. Upon expiry of the deadline, the students vandalised school premises, damaged surveillance cameras and set off a fire alarm. The VTC later suspended all classes on the Tiu Keng Leng campus of the HKDI, Youth College and other institutions between 15 and 17 October.[5][12] The VTC has since released additional CCTV clips after 200 students, amid class suspension, rallied inside the campus to support an online appeal for an indefinite class boycott.[13] The 16 clips released showed Chan wandering around campus for more than an hour.[4]

After the Design Institute had disclosed surveillance videos and the girl's mother had appealed for an end to the speculation of Chan's death, students continued to demand the release of integral footage from surveillance cameras for 29 and 30 October. Masked protesters accused the school of downplaying the situation; they continued to damage facilities and equipment on campus for two days, with the police ended up having to be called.[14]

Interview of Chan's mother

In an interview with TVB News on 17 October, Chan's mother, Ho Pui-yee, said that after looking at all the relevant CCTV footage, she was satisfied that her daughter's death was suicide.[4][15] She said that although she was initially suspicious of the death of Chan, she said that her daughter was not emotionally stable, and may well have had psychosis as demonstrated by auditory hallucination.[4][15][16][17] She said that her daughter once participated in distributing the leaflet of the protests in June, but had become disillusioned by July.[4][15] She added that she had been doxxed since her daughter's death, resulting in her being harassed at work and telephoned at all hours.[15][18] Ho pleaded to the general public to end the speculation and for her to be left alone.[4][14][15][18] Chan's mother appeared on TV wearing a surgical mask, and her face was edited out by mosaic. In the TV interview, she has long hair. However, multiple recent photos of Chan's mother on Facebook show that she had short hair in July.[19]

Ho's interview and the police's assertion that Chan had committed suicide were met with some skepticism: a political activist who knows Chan's brother doubted that Chan had committed suicide by drowning, citing the fact that she was an award-winning swimmer.[20] Retired coroner Philip Beh commented that the circumstances of the discovery and cremation of Chan's body were suspicious: discoveries of fully naked bodies in the sea are generally treated as suspect and would require thorough investigations, yet Beh's opinion is that Chan's body was hastily cremated after a preliminary autopsy. Beh opined that police should release further information about the autopsy and a coroner's inquest should be undertaken to allay suspicions of police misconduct.[21][22]

Cultural references

In the self-penned Cantonese composition "Explicit Comment" (人話) released in late 2019, singer-songwriter Charmaine Fong made reference to the public's scepticism of the official narrative of Chan's death with the lyric "The truth has long since disappeared, write your ridiculous plots". In the associated music video, the last-known footage of Chan and of police press conferences are juxtaposed.[23]

gollark: Wrong.
gollark: Or require reversing some hashes.
gollark: Or steganographically embedded like in round 8.
gollark: Maybe the shibboleths are compressed.
gollark: I see that this retains the usual tradition of ridiculous horizontal scrolling.

See also

References
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  2. Shelly Banjo; Natalie Lung (12 November 2019). "How Fake News and Rumors Are Stoking Division in Hong Kong". Bloomberg News. Archived from the original on 28 November 2019. Retrieved 3 December 2019 – via Yahoo!.
  3. "好友：佢想重新出發". Apple Daily (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 14 October 2019. Retrieved 14 October 2019.
  4. "Mother of tragedy girl asks for peace". The Standard. Archived from the original on 3 November 2019. Retrieved 4 December 2019.
  5. Lew, Linda (15 October 2019). "Classes suspended at Hong Kong Design Institute after students vandalise campus demanding surveillance footage of classmate found dead in sea". South China Morning Post. Archived from the original on 20 October 2019. Retrieved 20 October 2019.
  6. "全裸女浮屍 為15歲泳將 曾赴反送中示威". Apple Daily (in Chinese). 11 October 2019. Archived from the original on 14 October 2019. Retrieved 14 October 2019.
  7. "陳彥霖事件 警方指經解剖無可疑". 11 October 2019.
  8. "【油塘女浮屍】港鐵證陳彥霖調景嶺站曾遺手機　家屬兩日後領回". 香港01. 15 October 2019. Archived from the original on 16 October 2019. Retrieved 20 November 2019.
  9. "全裸女浮屍 為15歲泳將 曾赴反送中示威". Apple Daily (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 12 April 2020. Retrieved 12 April 2020.
  10. "【獨家】彥霖浮屍案 警曾列「謀殺」索CCTV 數日後改列「屍體發現」". Apple Daily (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 12 April 2020. Retrieved 12 April 2020.
  11. "15歲少女泳將變浮屍 港警堅稱自殺 – 國際 – 自由時報電子報". Liberty Times. 12 October 2019. Archived from the original on 14 October 2019. Retrieved 12 April 2020.
  12. Tong, Elson (16 October 2019). "Protesters demand CCTV footage from Tiu Keng Leng school following death of 15-year-old student". Hong Kong Free Press. Archived from the original on 18 October 2019. Retrieved 20 October 2019.
  13. Choi, Martin (16 October 2019). "15-year-old Hong Kong girl found dead at sea had walked barefoot through campus before leaving school grounds on day she was last seen, new footage shows". South China Morning Post. Archived from the original on 20 October 2019. Retrieved 20 October 2019.
  14. "Design institute vandalised again after school chiefs fail to meet students". South China Morning Post. 30 October 2019. Archived from the original on 5 December 2019. Retrieved 5 December 2019.
  15. "Mother says Hong Kong girl, 15, found dead in sea 'took her own life'". South China Morning Post. 17 October 2019. Archived from the original on 20 October 2019. Retrieved 5 December 2019.
  16. "Friends not convinced girl's death was suicide". Asia Times Online. Archived from the original on 30 October 2019. Retrieved 27 November 2019.
  17. 香港保衛戰之MK Ultra陳彥霖 on YouTube
  18. "陳彥霖媽媽接受專訪指相信女兒自殺 冀謠言盡快停止還她們寧靜". TVB News. Archived from the original on 17 October 2019. Retrieved 12 November 2019.
  19. "香港人反抗》撲朔迷離！頭髮長超快？陳彥霖母親是假的？ – 國際 – 自由時報電子報". Liberty Times. 20 October 2019. Archived from the original on 21 October 2019. Retrieved 12 April 2020.
  20. "Friends not convinced girl's death was suicide". Asia Times Online. Archived from the original on 30 October 2019. Retrieved 3 February 2020.
  21. "資深法醫馬宣立：陳彥霖浮屍全裸有可疑警應公開更多調查資料". Apple Daily (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 3 February 2020. Retrieved 3 February 2020.
  22. "任法醫30年馬宣立：姦殺案以外甚少遺體一絲不掛 必須在死因庭解開疑團". 眾新聞 (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 3 February 2020. Retrieved 3 February 2020.
  23. 港歌手方皓玟推出新歌《人話》撐反送中 上線2天點擊率破40萬 [HK singer Charmaine Fong releases new song "Explicit Comment" in support of Anti-ELAB; hitcount exceeds 400k in 2 days]. Australian living (in Chinese). 2 December 2019. Retrieved 3 March 2020.
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