On August 13, 2019, in the midst of the Anti-extradition Law Amendment Bill movement, the airport rally was suppressed by the police. Richard stood between the protesters and the policemen to mediate. That scene was photographed by many members of the press.
Since then, many Hong Kong people have named him “Airport Uncle.”
Chan participated in the district council election for the first time on Nov. 24, 2019. He defeated the pro-communist candidate, Chan Cho Leung, a member of the Business & Professionals Alliances for Hong Kong, with 3,605 votes in the Lam Tsuen Valley constituency, and was successfully elected as a district councilor together with most of the pan-democratic candidates.
In the 2019 Hong Kong District Council elections, a total of 452 elected seats were contested in the 18 District Councils of Hong Kong. The voter turnout was 71.23 percent, which was the highest recorded in Hong Kong.
The pro-democracy camp had a big win and won 86 percent of Hong Kong’s directly-elected seats (389 seats).
However, in the next two years, most of the pro-democracy district councillors have been disqualified by the Government for “invalid oath.”
On Oct. 8, 2021, the Government claimed that Richard and 15 other pro-democracy district councillors had taken an invalid oath, and immediately disqualified him from being a district councillor.
