Jason Chao

Elected as the president of the New Macau Association.

• In June, Chao campaigned against a high-rise building proposal that would hugely impact the landscape of the Small Taipa Hill, by holding a referendum.[9]
• In December, Chao revealed that government misled the public to respond in favour of putting more regulations on the journalists and news media at the consultation on revising the Publishing Law and Audio-visual Law.[10]

• During the consulting period for political reform at Macau, Chao fought for universal suffrage in the election of Legislative Assembly and Chief Executive, by conducting survey, holding a referendum and going on a hunger strike. However, he failed to accomplish it under pro-establishment organizations’ overwhelming propaganda.
• Chao exposed that the free Wi-Fi service provided by the MSAR government would decrypt users’ protected data and enforce censorship.
• Chao co-founded the activist organization Macau Conscience in July with several netizens including Bill Chou, an associate professor at the University of Macau.[11]
• In November, Chao co-authored with Bill Chou the second annual NGO Human Rights Report on Macau for 2012.[12]

• In January, Chao conducted the “Initial Survey on LGBT individuals in Macau”, which is the first-ever survey on the LGBT community in Macau, for the Macau LGBT Rights Concern Group.[13]
• Chao revealed the architecture of the new campus of the University of Macau was in fact a copycat of the architecture of Nanjing Audit University, which had been constructed a few years earlier.[14]
• Chao and associate professor Bill Chou had a video conference with the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations, in which they revealed the human right violations in Macau that were never mentioned in the report submitted by the MSAR government.[15]
• By invitation of the European Union, Chao visited the EU committee in Brussels and the European Council in Strasbourg in May. He is the first Macau citizen from NGOs to be invited by the EU. During his visit, Chao met with several EU officials and leaders of NGOs headquartered in Brussels.[16]

Chao was arrested for organising 2014 Macanese Chief Executive referendum.

Jason Chao and Man Tou appealed to the Court of Final Appeal against a ban imposed by the public security police on a proposed rally against the police brutality in 2019–20 Hong Kong protests. The Court denied the appeal.[17]

In November 2012, the MSAR government withdrew same-sex cohabitants from the domestic violence legislation, leaving LGBT individuals unprotected under the proposed counter-domestic violence law.[18] Later, in December, Chao and some of his friends founded the Macau LGBT Rights Concern Group, which marks the beginning of LGBT rights movement in Macau. The group then organized the first Rainbow Equality Parade, dedicated to fighting for LGBT rights, including the protection under domestic violence legislation.[19]

In January 2013, the Macau LGBT Rights Concern Group conducted a survey over LGBT individuals’ situation in Macau. On the day the results being published, Chao announced publicly his sex orientation towards males.[20]

• In February 2013, Chao believed that the fact that the government banned same-sex cohabitants from being in the domestic violence legislation might violate the International Covenant on Civil and Political Right since LGBT group should not be discriminated. Therefore, he sent a letter to United Nations Human Rights Committee, hoping that UN could intervene in this scenario.[21]
• In April 2013, Macau Rainbow was established; the Macau LGBT Rights Concern Group became an affiliated organization in which Chao is the spokesperson.[22]
• On the International Day against Homophobia, 2013, Chao, representing Macau Rainbow, held a flash mob at the Ruins of St. Pauls.[23]