Councillor Simon Hou threatens to sue student over email to council regarding bubble tea shop incident

Chinese business leaders are throwing their weight behind an Adelaide councillor at the centre of a social media furore over comments about an assault at a city bubble tea shop.

An Adelaide City councillor is receiving support from Chinese business leaders as he threatens to sue an overseas student over a letter calling for him to stand down.

Businessman Simon Hou has become the centre of a social media furore over comments he posted about the assault of a young Chinese woman at a Chinese bubble tea shop on Gouger St.

The comments prompted an overseas student at Flinders University, Sheng-fan Wang, to post a petitition calling for Cr Hou’s removal from council before he wrote a letter to elected members making similar demands.

Cr Hou responded by engaging Adelaide lawyer Greg Griffin to issue a defamation concerns notice on Mr Wang, demanding he retract his statements and pay $50,000 in damages.

Chinese business figures began sending emails to elected members on Monday expressing their support for Cr Hou as Mr Wang was urged by dozens of people on social media to urgently seek legal advice.

In his email to Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor and other councillors last Friday, Mr Wang claimed Cr Hou made “irresponsible” comments on Chinese social media site, Wechat, after a video showing the confrontation in Fun Tea went viral.

The video shows a young woman being slapped and kicked to the ground after challenging the shop’s owner over her wages.

A Glen Osmond man, 39, who is a friend of the business owner was later arrested over the incident, which has led to allegations of widespread wage theft within Chinatown against overseas students.

A rally outside Fun Tea last week, drawing attention to the violence against the worker and wage theft. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Kelly Barnes

Mr Wang sent an email to Adelaide City Council members claiming Cr Hou, a businessman and president of the China Business Network of South Australia, had made “ … irresponsible … public statements” on social media about the incident.

He included a link to a social media post he had made claiming translations of Cr Hou’s posts, made in Mandarin, said: “Although the Fun Tea owner slightly mishandled the issue, the whole incident wasn’t as bad as rumoured online on forums and group chats.”

The translations claim Cr Hou said he “scolded” the business owner and “told him to apologise when appropriate, told him to compensate when appropriate”.

In the post, Cr Hou said he was friends with the arrested man and the business owner but “when friends have done something wrong, I will remind them about it when I can, I will criticise them when I can”.

“Assaulting someone, especially women, is unacceptable,” he said.

Adelaide City councillor Simon Hou is under pressure over social media posts involving an assault at a Chinatown bubble tea shop. Picture: Kelly Barnes/The Australian

Mr Wang’s email called for Cr Hou to stand down and for the council to “perform an investigation” into his alleged behaviour.

In his letter, Mr Griffin put Mr Wang on notice that his email contained defamatory statements, and “false and vile” accusations “which you know not to be true”.

Mr Wang, an international student at Flinders University, then published Mr Griffin’s letter on Reddit, despite it being marked “strictly private and confidential”.

He said Cr Hou had, in his social media statements, downplayed the seriousness of the incident.

In an email to elected members on Saturday, Cr Hou said Mr Wang’s email’s had accused him of “a range of matters that are simply untrue and which singularly and collectively constitute a serious defamation of me”.

“I have been advised that as this matter is now in litigation I should refrain from any further comment on the issue except to reinforce my rejection of the matters alleged against me without foundation, made maliciously against me and designed to cause me harm and mischief,” he said.

Despite this, Cr Hou made another social media post on Sunday in which he criticised hundreds of people who had commented on Mr Wang’s petition on Reddit.

According to a translation of the post, he said he would sue Mr Wang and anyone else who defamed him.

“I am really angry right now,” he said. “Don’t I deserve human rights as a public figure?

“Shouldn’t those hiding behind a screen pay the price for defamation?

“Do they think they can shit on my face and simply walk away?”

Cr Hou is a member of the dominant Team Adelaide faction on Adelaide City Council, which consists of six out of the 11 councillors.

He is a prominent real estate agent within the Chinese community, specialising in managing rental properties in the Adelaide CBD owned by Chinese investors.

Councillor Simon Hou in an apartment he manages for Chinese investors. Picture: Kelly Barnes/The Australian

The next monthly meeting of the council is on Tuesday night, where a motion put by Cr Phillip Martin about wage theft is on the agenda.

The debate is expected to include discussion about the comments made on social media by Cr Hou and the subsequent public fallout.

In their emails sent to councillors on Monday, several Chinese business figures said they wanted Cr Hou to retain their support.

Sushi Planet director Kevin Wei Hi said Cr Hou had “did a lot of contributions to our communities”.

“Fully agree (sic) Councillor Hou uses legal way to defend his reputation,” he said.

“I wish to show my support to Councillor Hou as I believe he is important to our communities.”

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